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492  9 


THE 


IRISH  RACE 


IN  THE 


PAST  AND  THE  PRESENT. 


BY  THE 

KEV.  AUG.  J.  THllBAUD,  S.  J.^JJ 


"  I  look  toward  a  land  both  old  and  young— old  in  its  Christianity,  young  in  its  promise  of  the 
future ;  a  nation  which  received  grace  before  the  Saxon  came  to  Britain,  and  which  has  never  ques- 
tioned it;  a  Church  which  comprehends  in  its  history  the  rise  and  fall  of  Canterbury  and  York,  which 
Augustin  and  Paulinus  found,  and  Pole  and  Fisher  left  behind  them.  I  contemplate  a  people  which 
has  had  a  long  night,  and  will  have  an  inevitable  day.  I  am  turning  my  eyes  toward  a  hundred  years 
to  come,  and  I  dimly  see  the  Ireland  I  am  gazing  on  become  the  road  of  passage  and  union  between 
the  two  hemispheres,  and  the  centre  of  the  world.  I  see  its  inhabitants  rival  Belgium  in  populous- 
ness,  France  in  vigor,  and  Spain  in  enthusiasm."  John  Hekbt  Newman. 


NEW  YORK  : 

P.  J.  KENEDY, 
EXCELSIOR  CATHOLIC  PUBLISHING  HOUSE, 

5  Barclay  Street. 
1883. 


Copyright,  1878,  by 

P.  F.  COLL1EE. 


HEWITT,  PRINTER.  27  ROSE  STREET,  NEW  YORK. 


PREFACE. 


Count  Joseph  de  Maistre,  in  his  "  Principe  Generateur  des 
Constitutions  Politiques  "  (Par.  LXI.),  says :  "  All  nations  mani- 
fest a  particular  and  distinctive  character,  which  deserves  to  be 
attentively  considered." 

This  thought  of  the  great  Catholic  writer  requires  some 
development. 

It  is  not  by  a  succession  of  periods  of  progress  and  decay  only 
that  nations  manifest  their  life  and  individuality.  Taking  any 
one  of  them  at  any  period  of  its  existence,  and  comparing  it  with 
others,  peculiarities  immediately  show  themselves  which  give  it 
a  particular  physiognomy  whereby  it  may  be  at  once  distin- 
guished from  any  other;  so  that,  in  those  agglomerations  of 
men  which  we  call  nations  or  races,  we  see  the  variety  every- 
where observable  in  Nature,  the  variety  by  which  God  mani- 
fests the  infinite  activity  of  his  creative  power. 

When  we  take  two  extreme  types  of  the  human  species — the 
Ashantee  of  Guinea,  for  instance,  and  any  individual  of  one  of 
the  great  civilized  communities  of  Europe — the  phenomenon  of 
which  we  speak  strikes  us  at  once.  But  it  may  be  remarked 
also,  in  comparing  nations  which  have  lived  for  ages  in  con- 
tiguity, and  held  constant  intercourse  one  with  the  other  from 
tl\p  time  they  began  their  national  life,  whose  only  boundary- 
line  has  been  a  mountain-chain  or  the  banks  of  a  broad  river. 
They  have  each  striking  peculiarities  which  individualize  and 
stamp  them  with  a  character  of  their  own. 

How  different  are  the  peoples  divided  by  the  Rhine  or  by  the 
Pyrenees !  How  unlike  those  which  the  Straits  of  Dover  run 
between !  And  in  Asia,  what  have  the  conterminous  Chinese 
and  Hindoos  in  common  beyond  the  general  characteristics  of 
the  human  species  which  belong  to  all  the  children  of  Adam  ? 

But  what  we  must  chiefly  insist  upon  in  the  investigation  we 
are  now  undertaking  is,  that  the  life  of  each  is  manifested  by  a 


IV 


PREFACE. 


special  physiognomy  deeply  imprinted  in  their  whole  history, 
which  we  here  call  character.  What  each  of  them  is  their  history 
shows  ;  and  there  is  no  better  means  of  judging  of  them  than  by 
reviewing  the  various  events  which  compose  their  life. 

For  the  various  events  which  go  to  form  what  is  called  the 
history  of  a  nation  are  its  individual  actions,  the  spontaneous 
energy  of  its  life  ;  and,  as  a  man  shows  what  he  is  by  his  acts,  so 
does  a  nation  or  a  race  by  the  facts  of  its  history. 

When  we  compare  the  vast  despotisms  of  Asia,  crystallized 
into  forms  which  have  scarcely  changed  since  the  first  settlement 
of  man  in  those  immense  plains,  with  the  active  and  ever-moving 
smaller  groups  of  Europeans  settled  in  the  west  of  the  Old 
World  since  the  dispersion  of  mankind,  we  see  at  a  glance  how 
the  characters  of  both  may  be  read  in  their  respective  annals. 
And,  coming  down  gradually  to  less  extreme  cases,  we  recognize 
the  same  phenomenon  manifested  even  in  contiguous  tribes, 
springing  long  ago,  perhaps,  from  the  same  stock,  but  which  have 
been  formed  into  distinct  nations  by  distinct  ancestors,  although 
they  acknowledge  a  common  origin.  The  antagonism  in  their 
character  is  immediately  brought  out  by  what  historians  or  an- 
nalists have  to  say  of  them. 

Are  not  the  cruelty  and  rapacity  of  the  old  Scandinavian  race 
still  visible  in  their  descendants  ?  And  the  spirit  of  organization 
displayed  by  them  from  the  beginning  in  the  seizure,  survey, 
and  distribution  of  land — in  the  building  of  cities  and  castles — 
in  the  wise  speculations  of  an  exteusive  commerce — may  not 
all  these  characteristics  be  read  everywhere  in  the  annals  of  the 
nations  sprung  from  that  original  stock,  grouped  thousands  of 
years  ago  around  the  Baltic  and  the  Northern  Seas  ? 

How  different  appear  the  pastoral  and  agricultural  tribes 
which  have,  for  the  same  length  of  time,  inhabited  the  Swiss 
valleys  and  mountains !  With  a  multitude  of  usages,  differing 
all,  more  or  less,  from  each  other ;  with,  perhaps,  a  wretched 
administration  of  internal  affairs ;  with  frequent  complaints  of 
individuals,  and  partial  conflicts  among  the  rulers  of  those  small 
communities — with  all  these  defects,  their  simple  and  ever-uni- 
form chronicles  reveal  to  us  at  once  the  simplicity  and  peaceful 
disposition  of  their  character ;  and,  looking  at  them  through  the 
long  ages  of  an  obscure  life,  we  at  once  recognize  the  cause  of 
their  general  happiness  in  their  constant  want  of  ambition. 

And  if,  in  the  course  of  centuries,  the  character  of  a  nation 
has  changed — an  event  which  seldom  takes  place,  and  when  it 
does  is  due  always  to  radical  causes — its  history  will  immediately 
make  known  to  us  the  cause  of  the  change,  and  point  out  unmis- 
takably its  origin  and  source. 

Why  is  it,  for  instance,  that  the  French  nation,  after  having 
lived  for  near  a  thousand  vears  under  a  single  dynasty,  cannot 


PREFACE. 


v 


now  find  a  government  agreeable  to  its  modern  aspirations  %  It 
is  insufficient  to  ascribe  the  fact  to  the  fickleness  of  the  French 
temper.  During  ten  centuries  no  European  nation  has  been 
more  uniform  and  more  attached  to  its  government.  If  to-day 
the  case  is  altogether  reversed,  the  fact  cannot  be  explained  ex- 
cept by  a  radical  change  in  the  character  of  the  nation.  Firmly 
fixed  by  its  own  national  determination  of  purpose  and  by  the 
deep  studies  of  the  Middle  Ages — nowhere  more  remarkable  than 
in  Paris,  which  was  at  that  time  the  centre  of  the  activity  ot 
Catholic  Europe — the  French  mind,  first  thrown  by  Protestant- 
ism into  the  vortex  of  controversy,  gradually  declined  to  the 
consideration  of  mere  philosophical  Utopias,  until,  rejecting  at 
last  its  long-received  convictions,  it  abandoned  itself  to  the  ever- 
shifting  delusions  of  opinions  and  theories,  which  led  finally  to 
skepticism  and  unbelief  in  every  branch  of  knowledge,  even  the 
most  necessary  to  the  happiness  of  any  community  of  men. 
Other  causes,  no  doubt,  might  also  be  assigned  for  the  remark- 
able change  now  under  our  consideration.  The  one  we  have 
pointed  out  was  the  chief. 

To  the  same  causes,  acting  now  on  a  larger  scale  throughout 
Europe,  we  ascribe  the  same  radical  changes  which  we  see  taking 
place  in  the  various  nations  composing  it :  every  thing  brought 
everywhere  in  question  ;  the  mind  of  all  unsettled ;  a  real  an- 
archy of  intellect  spreading  wider  and  wider  even  in  countries 
which  until  now  had  stood  firm  against  it.  Hence  constant 
revolutions  unheard  of  hitherto  ;  nothing  stable ;  and  men  ex- 
pecting with  awe  a  more  frightful  and  radical  overturning  still 
of  every  thing  that  makes  life  valuable  and  dear. 

Are  not  these  tragic  convulsions  the  black  and  spotted  types 
wherein  we  read  the  altered  character  of  modern  nations  ;  are 
they  not  the  natural  expression  of  their  fitful  and  delirious  life  ? 

These  considerations,  which  might  be  indefinitely  prolonged, 
show  the  truth  of  the  phrase  of  Joseph  de  Maistre  that  "  all 
nations  manifest  a  particular  and  distinctive  character,  which 
deserves  to  be  attentively  considered  " 

The  fact  is,  in  this  kind  of  study  is  contained  the  only  pos- 
sible philosophy  of  history  for  modern  times. 

With  respect  to  ages  that  have  passed  away,  to  nations  which 
have  run  their  full  course,  a  nobler  study  is  possible — the  more 
so  because  inspired  writers  have  traced  the  way.  Thus  Bossuet 
wrote  his  celebrated  "  Discours."  But  he  stopped  wisely  at  the 
coming  of  our  Lord.  As  to  the  events  anterior  to  that  great 
epoch,  he  spoke  often  like  a  prophet  of  ancient  times ;  he  seemed 
at  times  to  be  initiated  in  the  designs  of  God  himself.  And,  in 
truth,  he  had  them  traced  by  the  very  Spirit  of  God  ;  and,  lifted 
by  his  elevated  mind  to  the  level  of  those  sublime  thoughts,  he 
had  only  to  touch  them  with  the  magic  of  his  style. 


vi 


PREFACE. 


But  of  subsequent  times  he  did  not  speak,  except  to  rehearse 
the  well-known  facts  of  modern  history,  whose  secret  is  not  yet 
revealed,  because  their  development  is  still  being  worked  out, 
and  no  conclusion  has  been  reached  which  might  furnish  the  key 
to  the  whole. 

There  remains,  therefore,  but  one  thing  to  do :  to  consider 
each  nation  apart,  and  read  its  character  in  its  history.  Should 
this  be  done  for  all,  the  only  practical  philosophy  of  modern 
history  would  be  written.  For  then  we  should  have  accomplished 
morally  for  men  what,  in  the  physical  order,  zoologists  accomplish 
for  the  immense  number  of  living  beings  which  God  has  spread 
over  the  surface  of  the  earth.  They  might  be  classified  accord- 
ing to  a  certain  order  of  the  ascending  or  descending  moral  scale. 
We  could  judge  them  rightly,  conformably  with  the  standard  of 
right  or  wrong,  which  is  in  the  absolute  possession  of  the  Chris- 
tian conscience.  Brilliant  but  baneful  qualities  would  no  longer 
impose  on  the  credulity  of  mankind,  and  men  would  not  be  led 
astray  in  their  judgments  by  the  rule  of  expediency  or  success 
which  generally  dictates  to  historians  the  estimate  they  form  and 
inculcate  on  their  readers  of  the  worth  of  some  nations,  and  the 
insignificance  or  even  odiousness  of  others. 

Xn  the  impossibility  under  which  we  labor  of  penetrating,  at 
the  present  time,  the  real  designs  of  Providence  with  respect  to 
the  various  races  of  men,  so  great  an  undertaking,  embracing  the 
principal,  if  not  all,  modern  races,  would  be  one  of  the  most  use- 
ful efforts  of  human  genius  for  the  spread  of  truth  and  virtue 
among  men. 

Our  purport  is  not  of  such  vast  import.  We  shall  take  in 
these  pages  for  the  object  of  our  study  one  of  the  smallest  and, 
apparently,  most  insignificant  nations  of  modem  Europe — the 
Irish.  For  several  ages  they  have  lost  even  what  generally  con- 
stitutes the  basis  of  nationality,  self-government ;  yet  they  have 
preserved  their  individuality  as  strongly  marked  as  though  they 
were  still  ruled  bv  the  O'Neill  dvnasty. 

And  we  may  here  remark  that  the  number  of  a  people  and  the 
size  of  its  territory  have  absolutely  no  bearing  on  the  estimate 
which  we  ought  to  form  of  its  character.  "Who  would  say  that 
the  Chinese  are  the  most  interesting  and  commendable  nation 
on  the  surface  of  the  globe  ?  They  are  certainly  the  most  an- 
cient and  most  populous  ;  their  code  of  precise  and  formal  mo- 
rality is  the  most  exact  and  clear  that  philosophers  could  ever  dic- 
tate, and  succeed  in  giving  as  law  to  a  great  people.  That  code 
has  been  followed  during  a  long  series  of  ages.  Most  discoveries 
of  modern  European  science  were  known  to  them  long  before 
they  were  found  out  among  us ;  agriculture,  that  first  of  arts, 
which  most  economists  consider  as  the  great  test  whereby  to 
judge  of  the  worth  of  a  nation,  is  and  always  has  been  carried 


PREFACE. 


Vll 


by  them  to  a  perfection  unknown  tc  us.  Yet,  the  smallest  Euro- 
pean nationality  is,  in  truth,  more  interesting  and  instructive 
than  the  vast  Celestial  Empire  can  ever  be — whose  long  annals 
are  all  compassed  within  a  few  hundred  pages  of  a  frigid  narra- 
tive, void  of  life,  and  altogether  void  of  soul. 

But  why  do  we  select,  among  so  many  others,  the  Irish  na- 
tion, which  is  so  little  known,  of  such  little  influence,  whose  his- 
tory occupies  only  a  few  lines  in  the  general  anna.s  of  the  world, 
and  whose  very  ownership  has  rested  in  the  hands  of  foreigners 
for  centuries  % 

We  select  it,  first,  because  it  is  and  always  has  been  thorough- 
ly Catholic,  from  the  day  when  it  first  embraced  Christianity  ; 
and  this,  under  the  circumstances,  we  take  to  be  the  best  proof, 
not  only  of  supreme  good  sense,  but,  moreover,  of  an  elevated, 
even  a  sublime  character.  In  their  martyrdom  of  three  centu- 
ries, the  Irish  have  displayed  the  greatness  of  soul  of  a  Polycarp, 
and  the  simplicity  of  an  Agnes.  And  the  Catholicity  which 
they  have  always  professed  has  been,  from  the  beginning,  of  a 
thorough  and  uncompromising  character.  All  modern  European 
nations,  it  is  true,  have  had  their  birth  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Church.  She  had  nursed  them  all,  educated  them  all,  made 
them  all  what  they  were,  when  they  began  to  think  of  emanci- 
pating themselves  from  her  ;  and  the  Catholic,  that  is,  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  in  its  essence,  is  supernatural ;  the  creed  of  the 
apostles,  the  sacramental  system,  the  very  history  of  Christianity, 
transport  man  directly  into  a  region  far  beyond  the  earth. 

Wherever  the  Christian  religion  has  been  preached,  nations 
have  awakened  to  this  new  sense  of  faith  in  the  supernatural, 
and  it  is  there  they  have  tasted  of  that  strong  food  which  made 
and  which  makes  them  still  so  superior  to  all  other  races  of  men. 
But,  as  we  shall  see,  in  no  country  has  this  been  the  case  so  thor- 
oughly as  in  Ireland.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause,  the 
Irish  were  at  once,  and  have  ever  since  continued,  thoroughly 
impregnated  with  supernatural  ideas.  For  several  centuries  after 
St.  Patrick  the  island  was  "  the  Isle  of  Saints,"  a  place  midway 
between  heaven  and  earth,  where  angels  and  the  saints  of  heaven 
came  to  dwell  with  mere  mortals.  The  Christian  belief  was 
adopted  by  them  to  the  letter ;  and,  if  Christianity  is  truth, 
ought  it  not  to  be  so  ?  Such  a  nation,  then,  which  received  such 
a  thorough  Christian  education — an  education  never  repudiated 
one  iota  during  the  ages  following  its  reception — deserves  a  thor- 
ough examination  at  our  hands. 

We  select  it,  secondly,  because  the  Irish  have  successfully  re- 
fused ever  since  to  enter  into  the  various  currents  of  European 
opinion,  although,  by  position  and  still  more  by  religion,  they 
formed  a  part  of  Europe.  They  have  thus  retained  a  character 
of  their  own,  unlike  that  of  any  other  nation.    To  this  day,  they 


viii 


PREFACE. 


stand  firm  in  their  admirable  stubbornness  ;  and  thus,  when  Eu- 
rope shall  be  shaken  and  tottering,  they  will  still  stand  firm.  In 
the  words  of  Moore,  addressed  to  his  own  country : 

K  The  nations  have  fallen  and  thou  still  art  young; 
Thy  sun  is  just  rising  when  others  are  set ; 
And  though  slavery's  cloud  o'er  thy  morning  hath  hung, 
The  full  noon  of  freedom  shall  beam  round  thee  yet." 

That  constant  refusal  of  the  Irish  to  fall  in  with  the  rapid 
torrent  of  European  thought  and  progress,  as  it  is  called,  is  the 
strangest  phenomenon  in  their  history,  and  gives  them  at  first 
an  outlandish  look,  which  many  have  not  hesitated  to  call  bar- 
barism. We  hope  thoroughly  to  vindicate  their  character  from 
such  a  foul  aspersion,  and  to  show  this  phenomenon  as  the  secret 
cause  of  their  final  success,  which  is  now  all  but  secured ;  and 
this  feature  alone  of  their  national  life  adds  to  their  character  an 
interest  which  we  find  in  no  other  Christian  nation. 

We  select  it,  thirdly,  because  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Irish 
is  the  most  ancient  nationality  of  Western  Europe ;  and  although, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Chinese,  the  advantage  of  going  up  to  the 
very  cradle  of  mankind  is  not  sufficient  to  impart  interest  to 
frigid  annals,  wThen  that  prerogative  is  united  to  a  vivid  life 
and  an  exuberant  individuality,  nothing  contributes  more  to 
render  a  nation  worthy  of  study  than  hoariness  of  age,  and  its 
derivation  from  a  certain  and  definite  primitive  stock. 

It  is  true  that,  in  reading  the  first  chapters  of  all  the  various 
histories  of  Ireland,  the  foreign  reader  is  struck  and  almost 
shocked  by  the  dogmatism  of  the  writers,  who  invariably,  and 
with  a  truly  Irish  assurance,  begin  with  one  of  the  sons  of  Ja- 
phet,  and,  following  the  Hebrew  or  Septuagint  chronology,  de- 
scribe without  flinching  the  various  colonizations  of  Erin,  not 
omitting  the  synchronism  of  Assyrian,  Persian,  Greek,  and  Ro- 
man history.  A  smile  is  at  first  the  natural  consequence  of  such 
assertions ;  and,  indeed,  there  is  no  obligation  whatever  to 
believe  that  every  thing  happened  exactly  as  they  relate. 

But  when  the  large  quartos  and  octavos  which  are  now  pub- 
lished from  time  to  time  by  the  students  of  Irish  antiquarian  lore 
are  opened,  read,  and  pondered  over,  at  least  one  consequence  is 
drawn  from  them  which  strikes  the  reader  with  astonishment. 
"  There  can  be  no  doubt,"  every  candid  mind  says  to  itself,  "  that 
this  nation  has  preceded  in  time  all  those  which  have  flourished 
on  the  earth,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  Chinese,  and 
that  it  remains  the  same  to-day."  At  least,  many  years  before 
Christ,  a  race  of  men  inhabited  Ireland  exactly  identical  with  its 
present  population  (except  that  it  did  not  enjoy  the  light  of  the 
true  religion),  yet  very  superior  to  it  in  point  of  material  well- 


PREFACE. 


ix 


being.  Not  a  race  of  cannibals,  as  the  credulous  Diodorus 
Siculus,  on  the  strength  of  some  vague  tradition,  was  pleased  to 
delineate  ;  but  a  people  acquainted  with  the  use  of  the  precious 
metals,  with  the  manufacture  of  fine  tissues,  fond  of  music  and 
of  song,  enjoying  its  literature  and  its  books ;  often  disturbed,  it 
is  true,  by  feuds  and  contentions,  but,  on  the  whole,  living  hap- 
pily under  the  patriarchal  rule  of  the  clan  system. 

The  ruins  which  are  now  explored,  the  relics  of  antiquity 
which  are  often  exhumed,  the  very  implements  and  utensils  pre- 
served by  the  careful  hand  of  the  antiquarian — every  thing,  so 
different  from  the  rude  flint  arrows  and  barbarous  weapons  of 
our  North  American  Indians  and  of  the  European  savages  of  the 
Stone  period ,  denotes  a  state  of  civilization,  astonishing  indeed, 
when  we  reflect  that  real  objects  of  art  embellished  the  dwellings 
of  Irishmen  probably  before  the  foundation  of  Rome,  and  per- 
haps when  Greece  was  as  yet  in  a  state  of  heroic  barbarism. 

And  this  high  antiquity  is  proved  by  literature  as  well  as  by 
art.  "  The  ancient  Irish,"  says  one  of  their  latest  historians,  M. 
Haverty,  "attributed  the  utmost  importance  to  the  accuracy  of 
their  historic  compositions  for  social  reasons.  Their  whole  system 
of  society — every  question  as  to  right  of  property — turned  upon 
the  descent  of  families  and  the  principle  of  clanship ;  so  that  it 
cannot  be  supposed  that  mere  fables  would  be  tolerated  instead 
of  facts,  where  every  social  claim  was  to  be  decided  on  their  author- 
ity. A  man's  name  is  scarcely  mentioned  in  our  annals  without 
the  addition  of  his  forefathers  for  several  generations — a  thing 
which  rarely  occurs  in  those  of  other  countries. 

"  Again,  when  we  arrive  at  the  era  of  Christianity  in  Ireland, 
we  find  that  our  ancient  annals  stand  the  test  of  verification  by 
science  with  a  success  which  not  only  establishes  their  character 
for  truthfulness  at  that  period,  but  vindicates  the  records  of  pre 
ceding  dates  involved  in  it." 

The  most  confirmed  skeptic  cannot  refuse  to  believe  that  at 
the  introduction  of  Christianity  into  Ireland,  in  432,  the  whole 
island  was  governed  by  institutions  exactly  similar  to  those  of 
Gaul  when  Julius  Caesar  entered  it  400  years  before ;  that  this 
state  must  have  existed  for  a  long  time  anterior  to  that  date ; 
and  that  the  reception  of  the  new  religion,  with  all  the  circum- 
stances which  attended  it,  introduced  the  nation  at  once  into  a 
happy  and  social  state,  which  other  European  countries,  at  that 
time  convulsed  by  barbarian  invasions,  did  not  attain  till  several 
centuries  later. 

These  various  considerations  would  alone  suffice  to  show  the 
real  importance  of  the  study  we  undertake ;  but  a  much  more 
powerful  incentive  to  it  exists  in  the  very  nature  of  the  annals 
of  the  nation  itself. 

Ireland  is  a  country  which,  during  the  last  thousand  years, 


X 


PREFACE. 


has  maintained  a  constant  struggle  against  three  powerful  ene- 
mies, and  has  finally  conquered  them  all. 

The  first  stage  of  the  conflict  was  that  against  the  Northmen. 
It  lasted  three  centuries,  and  ended  in  the  almost  complete  dis- 
appearance of  this  foe. 

The  second  act  of  the  great  drama  occupied  a  period  of  four 
hundred  years,  during  which  all  the  resources  of  the  Irish  clans 
were  arrayed  against  Anglo-Norman  feudalism,  which  had  finally 
to  succumb ;  so  that  Erin  remained  the  only  spot  in  Europe 
where  feudal  institutions  never  prevailed. 

The  last  part  of  this  fearful  trilogy  was  a  conflict  of  three  cen- 
turies with  Protestantism;  and  the  final  victory  is  no  longer 
doubtful. 

Can  any  other  modern  people  offer  to  the  meditation,  and, 
we  must  say,  to  the  admiration  of  the  Christian  reader,  a  more 
interesting  spectacle?  The  only  European  nation  which  can 
almost  compete  with  the  constancy  and  never-dying  energy  of 
Ireland  is  the  Spanish  in  its  struggle  of  seven  centuries  with  the 
Moors. 

We  have  thought,  therefore,  that  there  might  be  some  real 
interest  and  profit  to  be  derived  from  the  study  of  this  eventful 
national  life — an  interest  and  a  profit  which  will  appear  as  we 
study  it  more  in  detail. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  threefold  conflict  which  we  have 
outlined  might  be  condensed  into  the  surprising  fact  that  all 
efforts  to  drag  Ireland  into  the  current  of  European  affairs  and 
influence  have  invariably  failed.  This  is  the  key  to  the  under- 
standing of  her  whole  history. 

Even  originally,  when  it  formed  but  a  small  portion  of  the 
great  Celtic  race,  there  existed  in  the  Irish  branch  a  peculiarity  of 
its  own,  which  stamped  it  with  features  easy  to  be  distinguished. 
The  gross  idolatry  of  the  Gauls  never  prevailed  among  the  Irish  ; 
the  Bardic  system  was  more  fully  developed  among  them  than 
among  any  other  Celtic  nation.  Song,  festivity,  humor,  ruled 
there  much  more  universally  than  elsewhere.  There  were  among 
them  more  harpers  and  poets  than  even  genealogists  and  anti- 
quarians, although  the  branches  of  study  represented  by  these 
last  were  certainly  as  well  cultivated  among  them  as  among  the 
Celts  of  Gaul,  Spain,  or  Italy. 

But  it  is  chiefly  after  the  introduction  of  Christianity  among 
them,  when  it  appeared  finally  decreed  that  they  should  belong 
morally  and  socially  to  Europe,  it  is  chiefly  then  that  their  pur- 
pose, however  unconscious  they  may  have  been  of  its  tendency, 
seems  more  defined  of  opening  up  for  themselves  a  path  of  their 
own.    And  in  this  they  followed  only  the  promptings  of  Nature. 

The  only  people  in  Europe  which  remained  untouched  by 
wha*  is  called  Roman  civilization — never  having  seen  a  Roman 


PREFACE. 


xi 


soldier  on  their  shores ;  never  having  been  blessed  by  the  con- 
struction of  Roman  baths  and  amphitheatres  ;  never  having  lis- 
tened to  the  declamations  of  Roman  rhetoricians  and  sophists,  nor 
received  the  decrees  of  Roman  praetors,  nor  been  subject  to  the 
exactions  of  the  Roman  fisc — they  never  saw  among  them,  in 
halls  and  basilicas  erected  under  the  direction  of  Roman  archi- 
tects, Roman  judges,  governors,  proconsuls,  enforcing  the  de- 
crees of  the  Caesars  against  the  introduction  or  propagation  of 
the  Christian  religion.  Hence  it  entered  in  to  them  without 
opposition  and  bloodshed. 

But  the  new  religion,  far  from  depriving  them  of  their  charac- 
teristics, consecrated  and  made  them  lasting.  They  had  their 
primitive  traditions  and  tastes,  their  patriarchal  government 
and  manners,  their  ideas  of  true  freedom  and  honor,  reaching 
back  almost  to  the  cradle  of  mankind.  They  resolved  to  hold 
these  against  all  comers,  and  they  have  been  faithful  to  their 
resolve  down  to  our  own  times.  Fourteen  hundred  years  of 
history  since  Patrick  preached  to  them  proves  it  clearly  enough. 

First,  then,  although  the  Germanic  tribes  of  the  first  invasion, 
as  it  is  called,  did  not  reach  their  shore,  for  the  reason  that  the 
Germans,  as  little  as  the  Celts,  never  possessed  a  navy — although 
neither  Frank,  nor  Yandal,  nor  Hun,  renewed  among  them  the 
horrors  witnessed  in  Gaul,  Spain,  Italy,  and  Africa — they  could 
not  remain  safe  from  the  Scandinavian  pirates,  whose  vessels 
scoured  all  the  northern  seas  before  they  could  enter  the  Medi- 
terranean through  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar. 

The  Northmen,  the  Danes,  came  and  tried  to  establish  them- 
selves among  them  and  inculcate  their  northern  manners,  system, 
and  municipal  life.  They  succeeded  in  England,  Holland,  the 
north  of  France,  and  the  south  of  Italy ;  in  a  word,  wherever  the 
wind  had  driven  their  hide-bound  boats.  The  Irish  was  the  only 
nation  of  Western  Europe  which  beat  them  back,  and  refused 
to  receive  the  boon  of  their  higher  civilization. 

As  soon  as  the  glories  of  the  reign  of  Charlemagne  had  gone 
down  in  a  sunset  01  splendor,  the  Northmen  entered  unopposed 
all  the  great  rivers  of  France  and  Spain.  They  speedily  con- 
quered England.  On  all  sides  they  ravaged  the  country  and 
destroyed  the  population,  whose  only  defence  consisted  in  prayers 
to  Heaven,  with  here  and  there  an  heroic  bishop  or  count.  In 
Ireland  alone  the  Danes  found  to  their  cost  that  the  Irish  spear 
was  thrust  with  a  steady  and  firm  hand  ;  and  after  two  hundred 
years  of  struggle  not  only  had  they  not  arrived  at  the  survey  and 
division  of  the  soil,  as  wherever  else  they  had  set  foot,  but,  after 
Clontarf,  the  few  cities  they  still  occupied  were  compelled  to  pay 
tribute  to  the  Irish  Ard-Righ.  Hence  all  attempts  to  substitute 
the  Scandinavian  social  system  for  that  of  the  Irish  septs  and 
clans  were  forever  frustrated.     City  life  and  maritime  enter- 


PREFACE. 


prises,  together  with  commerce  and  trade,  were  as  scornfully 
rejected  as  the  worship  of  Thor  and  Odin. 

Soon  after  this  first  victory  of  Ireland  over  Northern  Europe, 
the  Anglo-Norman  invasion  originated  a  second  struggle  of  longer 
duration  and  mightier  import.  The  English  Strongbow  replaced 
the  Danes  with  Norman  freebooters,  who  occupied  the  precise 
spots  which  the  new  owners  had  reconquered  from  the  North- 
men, and  never  an  inch  more.  Then  a  great  spectacle  was  offered 
to  the  world,  which  has  too  much  escaped  the  observation  of  his- 
torians, and  to  which  we  intend  to  draw  the  attention  of  our 
readers. 

The  primitive,  simple,  patriarchal  system  of  clanship  was 
confronted  by  the  stern,  young,  ferocious  feudal  system,  which 
was  then  beginning  to  prevail  all  over  Europe.  The  question 
was,  Would  Ireland  consent  to  become  European  as  Europe  was 
then  organizing  herself  1  The  struggle,  as  we  shall  see,  between 
the  Irish  and  the  English  in  the  twelfth  century  and  later  on,  was 
merely ^aj^pn^g*  ^phyQan  tliA  pppt  system  and  feudalism,  involv- 
ing, it  is  true,  the  possession  otUancfc—  And,  at  Lhe  end  ui-a  con- 
test lasting  four  hundred  years,  \£eiidalis»^  was  so  thoroughly  de- 
feated that  the  English  of  the  Pale  adopted  the  Irish  manners, 
customs,  and  even  language,  and  formed  only  new  septs  among 
the  old  ones. 

Hence  Ireland  escaped  all  the  commotions  produced  in  Europe 
by  the  consequences  of  the  feudal  system  : 

I.  Serfdom,  which  was  generally  substituted  for  slavery,  never 
existed  in  Ireland,  slavery  having  disappeared  before  the  entry 
of  the  Anglo-Normans. 

II.  The  universal  oppression  of  the  lower  classes,  which  caused 
the  simultaneous  rising  of  the  communes  all  over  Europe,  never 
having  existed  in  Ireland,  we  shall  not  be  surprised  to  find  no 
mention  in  Irish  history  of  that  wide-spread  institution  of  the 
eleventh  and  following  centuries. 

III.  An  immense  advantage  which  Ireland  derived  from  her 
isolation,  on  which  she  always  insisted,  was  her  being  altogether 
freed  from  the  fearful  mediaeval  heresies  which  convulsed  France 
particularly  for  a  long  period,  and  which  invariably  came  from 
the  East. 

For  Erin  remained  so  completely  shut  off  from  the  rest  of 
Europe,  that,  in  spite  of  its  ardent  Catholicism,  the  Crusades 
were  never  preached  to  its  inhabitants  ;  and,  if  some  individual 
Irishman  joined  the  ranks  of  the  warriors  led  to  Palestine  by 
Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  the  nation  was  in  no  way  affected  by  the 
good  or  bad  results  which  everywhere  ensued  from  the  marching 
of  the  Christian  armies  against  the  Moslem. 

The  sects  which  sprang  from  Manicheism  were  certainly  an 
evil  consequence  of  the  holy  wars  ;  and  it  would  be  a  great  error 


PREFACE.  xiii 


to  think  that  those  heresies  were  short-lived  and  affected  only 
for  a  brief  space  of  time  the  social  and  moral  state  of  Europe.  It 
may  be  said  that  their  fearfully  disorganizing  influence  lasts  to 
this  day.  If  modern  secret  societies  do  not,  in  point  of  fact,  de- 
rive their  existence  directly  from  the  Bulgarism  and  Manicheism 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  there  is  no  doubt  that  those  dark  errors, 
which  imposed  on  all  their  adepts  a  stern  secrecy,  paved  the  way 
for  the  conspiracies  of  our  times.  Hence  Ireland,  not  having 
felt  the  effect  of  the  former  heresies,  is  in  our  days  almost  free 
from  the  universal  contagion  now  decomposing  the  social  fabric 
on  all  sides. 

But  it  is  chiefly  in  modern  times  that  the  successful  resistance 
offered  by  Ireland  to  many  wide-spread  European  evils,  and  its 
strong  attachment  to  its  old  customs,  will  evoke  our  wonder. 

Clanship  reigned  still  over  more  than  four-fifths  of  the  island 
when  the  Portuguese  were  conquering  a  great  part  of  India,  and 
the  Spaniards  making  Central  and  South  America  a  province  of 
their  almost  universal  monarchy. 

The  poets,  harpers,  antiquarians,  genealogists,  and  students 
of  Brehon  law,  still  held  full  sway  over  almost  the  whole  island, 
when  the  revival  of  pagan  learning  was,  we  may  say,  convulsing 
Italy,  giving  a  new  direction  to  the  ideas  of  Germany,  and  pene- 
trating France,  Holland,  and  Switzerland.  Happy  were  the  Irish 
to  escape  that  brilliant  but  fatal  invasion  of  mythology  and 
Grecian  art  and  literature !  Had  they  not  received  enough  of 
Greek  and  Latin  lore  at  the  hands  of  their  first  apostles  and  mis- 
sionaries, and  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  numerous 
amanuenses  and  miniaturists  in  their  monasteries  and  con- 
vents ?  Those  holy  men  had  brought  them  what  Christian  Rome 
had  purified  of  the  old  pagan  dross,  and  sanctified  by  the  new 
Divine  Spirit. 

Virgin  Ireland  having  thus  remained  undefiled,  and  never 
having  even  been  agitated  by  all  those  earlier  causes  of  succeed- 
ing revolutions^Protestantisjxu.  the  final  explosion  of  them  all, 
could  make  no  impression  on  her — a  fact  which  remains  to  this 
day  the  brightest  proof  of  "hnr  strength  and  vigor. 

But,  before  speaking  of  this  last^onfiictfw^must  meet  an 
objection  which  will  naturally  present  itself. 

To  steadily  refuse  to  enter  into  the  current  of  European 
thought,  and  object  to  submit  in  any  way  to  its  influence,  is, 
pretend  many,  really  to  reject'the  claims  of  civilization,  and  per- 
sist in  refusing  to  enter  upon  the  path  of  progress.  The  North 
American  savage  has  always  been  most  persistent  in  this  stub- 
born opposition  to  civilized  life,  and  no  one  has  as  yet  considered 
this  a  praiseworthy  attribute.  The  more  barbarous  a  tribe,  the 
more  firmly  it  adheres  to  its  traditions,  the  more  pertinaciously 
it  follows  the  customs  of  its  ancestors.    They  are  immovable, 


xiv 


PREFACE. 


and  cannot  be  brought  to  adopt  usages  new  to  them,  even  when 
they  see  the  immense  advantages  they  would  reap  from  their 
adoption.  Hence  the  greater  number  of  writers,  chiefly  English, 
who  have  treated  of  Irish  affairs,  unhesitatingly  call  them  bar 
barians,  precisely  on  account  of  their  stubbornness  in  rejecting 
the  advances  of  the  Anglo-Norman  invaders.  Sir  John  Da  vies, 
the  attorney-general  of  James  L,  could  scarcely  write  a  page  on 
the  subject  without  reverting  to  this  idea. 

We  answer  that  the  Irish,  even  before  their  conversion  to 
Christianity,  but  chiefly  after,  were  not  barbarians  ;  they  never 
opposed  true  progress ;  and  they  became,  in  fact,  in  the  sixth, 
seventh,  and  eighth  centuries,  the  moral  and  scientific  educators 
of  the  greater  part  of  Europe.  What  they  refused  to  adopt  they 
were  right  in  rejecting.  But,  as  there  are  still  many  men  who, 
without  ever  having  studied  the  question,  do  not  hesitate,  even 
in  our  days,  to  throw  barbarism  in  their  teeth,  and  attribute  to 
it  the  pitiable  condition  which  the  Irish  to-day  present  to  the 
world,  we  add  a  few  further  considerations  on  this  point. 

First,  then,  we  say,  barbarians  have  no  history ;  and  the 
Irish  certainly  had  a  history  long  before  St.  Patrick  converted 
them.  Until  lately,  it  is  true,  the  common  opinion  of  writers  on 
Ireland  was  adverse  to  this  assertion  of  ours  ;  but,  after  the 
labors  of  modern  antiquarians — of  such  men  as  O'Donovan,  Todd, 
E.  O' Curry,  and  others — there  can  no  longer  be  any  doubt  on 
the  subject.  If  Julius  Caesar  was  right  in  stating  that  the  Druids 
of  Gaul  confined  themselves  to  oral  teaching — and  the  statement 
may  very  well  be  questioned,  with  the  light  of  present  informa- 
tion on  the  subject — it  is  now  proved  that  the  OUamhs  of  Erin 
kept  written  annals  which  went  back  to  a  very  remote  age  of  the 
world.  The  numerous  histories  and  chronicles  written  by  monks 
of  the  sixth  and  following  centuries,  the  authenticity  of  which 
cannot  be  denied,  evidently  presuppose  anterior  compositions 
dating  much  farther  back  than  the  introduction  of  our  holy 
religion  into  Ireland,  which  the  Christian  annalists  had  in  their 
hands  when  they  wrote  their  books,  sometimes  in  Latin,  some- 
times in  old  Irish,  sometimes  in  a  strange  medley  of  both  lan- 
guages. It  is  now  known  that  St.  Patrick  brought  to  Ireland 
the  Koman  alphabet  only,  and  that  it  was  thenceforth  used  not 
merely  for  the  ritual  of  the  Church,  and  the  dissemination  of  the 
Bible  and  of  the  works  of  the  Holy  Fathers,  but  likewise  for  the 
transcription,  in  these  newly-consecrated  symbols  of  thought,  of 
the  old  manuscripts  of  the  island ;  which  soon  disappeared,  in 
the  far  greater  number  of  instances  at  least,  owing  to  the  favor 
in  which  the  Roman  characters  were  held  by  the  people  and 
their  instructors  the  bishops  and  monks.  Let  those  precious  old 
symbols  be  called  Ogham,  or  by  any  other  name — there  must 
have  been  something  of  the  kini 


PREFACE. 


XV 


If  any  one  insists  that  such  was  not  the  case,  he  must  of  neces- 
sity admit  that  the  oral  teaching  of  the  Ollamhs  was  so  perfect 
and  so  universally  current  in  the  same  formulas  all  over  the 
island,  that  such  oral  teaching  really  took  the  place  of  writing ; 
and  in  this  case,  also,  which  is  scarcely  possible,  however,  Ireland 
had  an  authentic  history.  This  last  supposition,  certainly,  can 
hardly  be  credited  ;  and  yet,  if  the  first  be  rejected,  it  must  be 
admitted,  since  it  cannot  be  imagined  that  subsequent  Irish  his- 
torians, numerous  as  they  became  in  time,  could  have  agreed  so 
well  together,  and  remained  so  consistent  with  themselves,  and 
so  perfectly  accurate  in  their  descriptions  of  places  and  things  in 
general,  without  anterior  authentic  documents  of  some  kind  or 
other,  on  which  they  could  rely.    Any  person  who  has  merely 

f lanced  at  the  astonishing  production  called  the  "  Annals  of  the 
our  Masters,"  must  necessarily  be  of  this  opinion. 
In  no  nation  in  the  world  are  there  found  so  many  old  his- 
tories, annals,  chronicles,  etc.,  as  among  the  Irish  ;  and  that  fact 
alone  suffices  to  prove  that  in  periods  most  ancient  they  were 
truly  a  civilized  nation,  since  they  attached  such  importance  to 
the  records  of  events  then  taking  place  among  them. 

But  the  Irish  were,  moreover,  a  branch  of  the  great  Celtic 
race,  whose  renown  for  wisdom,  science,  and  valor,  was  spread 
through  all  parts,  particularly  among  the  Greeks.  The  few  de- 
tails we  urpose  giving  on  the  subject  will  convince  the  reader 
that  among  the  nations  of  antiquity  they  held  a  prominent  posi- 
tion ;  and  not  only  were  they  possessed  of  a  civilization  of  their 
own,  not  despicable  even  in  the  eyes  of  a  Roman — of  the  great 
Julius  himself — but  they  were  ever  most  susceptible  of  every 
kind  of  progress,  and  consequently  eager  to  adopt  all  the  social 
benefits  which  their  intercourse  with  Rome  brought  them.  At 
least,  they  did  so  as  soon  as,  acknowledging  the  superior  power 
of  the  enemy,  they  had  the  good  sense  to  feel  that  it  was  all- 
important  to  imitate  him.  Hence  sprang  that  Gallo-Roman 
civilization  which  obtained  during  the  first  five  or  six  centuries 
of  the  Christian  era — a  civilization  which  the  barbarians  of  the 
North  endeavored  to  destroy,  but  to  which  they  themselves  finally 
yielded,  by  embracing  Christianity,  and  gradually  changing  their 
language  and  customs. 

Everywhere — in  Gaul,  Italy,  Britain,  and  Ireland — did  the 
Celts  manifest  that  susceptibility  to  progress  which  is  the  invari- 
able mark  of  a  state  antagonistic  to  barbarism.  In  this  they  to- 
tally differed  from  the  Yandals  and  Huns,  whom  it  took  the 
Church  such  a  dreary  period  to  conquer,  and  whom  no  other 
power  save  the  religion  of  Christ  could  have  subdued. 

These  few  words  are  sufficient  for  our  present  purpose.  "We 
proceed  to  show  that,  in  their  stubborn  opposition  to  many  a 
current  of  European  opinion,  they  acted  rightly. 


XVI 


PREFACE. 


They  acted  rightly,  first  of  all,  in  excluding  from  their  course 
of  studies  at  Bangor,  Clonfert,  Armagh,  Clonmacnoise,  and  other 
places,  the  subtleties  of  Greek  philosophy,  which  occasioned 
heresies  in  Europe  and  Asia  during  the  first  ages  of  the  Church, 
and  were  the  cause  of  so  many  social  and  political  convulsions. 
By  adhering  strictly — a  little  too  strictly,  perhaps — to  their  tra- 
ditional method  of  develop^-ig  thought,  they  kept  error  far  from 
their  universities,  and  presented,  in  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth 
centuries,  the  remarkable  spectacle  in  Ireland,  France,  Germany, 
Switzerland,  and  even  Northern  Italy,  of  numerous  schools 
wherein  no  wrangling  found  a  place,  and  whence  never  issued  a 
single  proposition  which  Rome  found  reason  to  censure.  They 
were  at  that  time  the  educators  of  Christian  Europe,  and  not 
even  a  breath  of  suspicion  was  ever  raised  against  any  one  of  their 
innumerable  teachers.  If  their  mind,  in  general,  did  not  on  that 
account  attain  the  acuteness  of  the  French,  Italians,  or  Ger- 
mans, it  was  at  all  times  safer  and  more  guarded.  Even  their 
later  hostility  to  the  English  Pale,  after  the  eleventh  century, 
was  most  useful,  from  its  warning  against  the  teachings  of  prel- 
ates sent  from  the  English  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge ; 
and  Borne  seems  to  have  approved  of  that  opposition,  by  using 
all  her  power  in  appointing  to  Irish  sees,  even  within  the  Pale, 
prelates  chosen  from  the  Augustinian,  Dominican,  Franciscan, 
and  Carmelite  orders,  in  preference  to  secular  ecclesiastics  edu- 
cated in  the  great  seats  of  English  learning. 

Thus  the  Irish,  by  opening  their  schools  gratuitously  to  all 
Europe,  but  chiefly  to  Anglo-Saxon  England,  were  not  only  of 
immense  service  to  the  Church,  but  showed  how  fully  they  ap- 
preciated the  benefits  of  true  civilization,  and  how  ready  they 
were  to  extend  it  by  their  traditional  teaching.  Nor  did  they 
confine  themselves  to  receiving  scholars  in  their  midst :  they  sent 
abroad,  during  those  ages,  armies  of  zealous  missionaries  and 
learned  men  to  Christianize  the  heathen,  or  educate  the  newly- 
converted  Germanic  tribes  in  Merovingian  and  Carlovingian  Gaul, 
in  Anglo-Saxon  and  Scandinavian  England,  in  Lombardian  Italy, 
in  the  very  hives  of  those  ferocious  tribes  which  peopled  the  ever- 
moving  and- at  that  time  convulsed  Germany. 

II.  They  were  right  in  refusing  to  submit  to  the  Scandinavian 
yoke,  and  accept  from  those  who  would  impose  it  their  taste  for 
city  life,  and  the  spirit  of  maritime  enterprise  and  extensive  com- 
merce. We  shall  see  that  this  was  at  the  bottom  of  their  two 
centuries  of  struggle  with  the  Danes  ;  that  they  were  animated 
throughout  that  conflict  by  their  ardent  zeal  for  the  Christian 
religion,  which  the  Northmen  came  to  destroy.  There  is  no  need 
of  dwelling  on  this  point,  as  we  are  not  aware  that  any  one,  even 
their  bitterest  enemies,  has  found  fault  with  them  here. 

HI.  They  were  right  in  opposing  feudalism,  and  steadily  re- 


PREFACE.  xvii 


fusing  to  admit  it  on  their  soil.  Feudal  Europe  beheld  with 
surprise  the  inhabitants  of  a  small  island  on  the  verge  of  the 
Western  Continent  level  to  the  ground  the  feudal  castles  as  soon 
as  they  were  bnilt ;  reject  with  scorn  the  invaders'  claim  to  their 
soil,  after  they  had  signed  papers  which  they  conid  not  under- 
stand ;  hold  fast  to  their  patriarchal  usages  in  opposition  to  the 
new-born  European  notions  of  paramount  kings,  of  dukes,  earls, 
counts,  and  viscounts ;  fight  for  four  hundred  years  against 
what  the  whole  of  Europe  had  everywhere  else  accepted,  and 
conquer  in  the  end ;  so  that  the  Irish  of  to-day  can  say  with 
just  pride,  "  Our  island  has  never  submitted  to  mediaeval  feu- 
dalism." 

And  hence  the  island  has  escaped  the  modern  results  of  the 
system,  which  we  all  witness  to-day  in  the  terrible  hostility  of 
class  arrayed  against  class,  the  poor  against  the  rich,  the  lower 
orders  against  the  higher.  The  opposition  in  Ireland  between 
the  oppressed  and  the  oppressor  is  of  a  very  different  character, 
as  we  shall  see  later.  But  the  fact  is,  that  the  clan  system,  with 
all  its  striking  defects,  had  at  least  this  immense  advantage,  that 
the  clansmen  did  not  look  upon  their  chieftains  as  u  lords  and 
masters,"  but  as  men  of  the  same  blood,  true  relations,  and 
friends ;  neither  did  the  heads  of  the  clans  look  on  their  men  as 
villeins,  serfs,  or  chattels,  but  as  companions-in-arms,  foster- 
brothers,  supporters,  and  allies.  Hence  the  opposition  which 
exists  in  our  days  throughout  Europe  between  class  and  class, 
has  never  existed  in  Ireland.  Let  a  son  of  their  old  chiefs,  if 
one  can  yet  be  found,  go  back  to  them,  even  but  for  a  few  days, 
after  centuries  of  estrangement,  and  they  are  ready  to  welcome 
him  yet,  as  a  loyal  nation  would  welcome  her  long-absent  king, 
as  a  family  would  receive  a  father  it  esteemed  lost.  We  know 
in  what  manner  a  son  of  a  French  McMahon  was  lately  received 
among  them. 

All  hostility  is  reserved  for  the  foreigner,  the  invader,  the 
oppressor  of  centuries,  because,  in  the  opinion  of  the  natives, 
these  have  no  real  right  to  dwell  on  a  soil  they  have  impover- 
ished, and  which  they  tried  in  vain  to  enslave.  This,  at  least,  is 
their  feeling.  But  the  sons  of  the  soil,  whether  rich  or  poor, 
high  or  low,  are  all  united  in  a  holy  brotherhood.  This  state  of 
things  they  have  preserved  by  the  exclusion  of  feudalism. 

fV.  The  Irish  were  right  in  not  accepting  from  Europe  what 
is  known  as  the  "  revival  of  learning ;  "  at  least,  as  carried  almost 
to  the  excess  of  modern  paganism  by  its  first  promoters. 

This  "  revival "  did  not  reach  Ireland.  Many  will,  doubt- 
less, attribute  this  fact  to  the  almost  total  exclusion  then  sup- 
posed to  exist  of  Ireland  from  all  European  intercourse.  It  would 
be  a  great  error  to  imagine  such  to  have  been  the  cause.  Indeed, 
at  that  very  time,  Ireland  was  more  in  daily  contact  with  Italy, 


PREFACE. 


France,  and  Spain,  than  had  been  the  case  since  the  eighth  cen- 
tury. 

If  the  Irish  were  right  in  holding  steadfast  to  the  line  of  their 
traditional  studies,  in  rejecting  the  city  life  and  commercial  spirit 
of  the  Danes,  in  opposing  Anglo-Norman  feudalism,  and,  finally, 
in  not  accepting  the  more  than  doubtful  advantages  flowing  from 
the  literary  revival  of  the  fifteenth  century ;  if,  in  all  this,  they 
did  not  oppose  true  progress,  but  merely  wished  to  advance  in  the 
peculiar  path  opened  up  to  them  by  the  Christianity  which  they 
had  received  more  fully,  with  more  earnestness,  and  with  a  view 
to  a  greater  development  of  the  supernatural  idea,  than  any  other 
European  nation — then,  beyond  all  other  modes,  did  they  dis- 
play their  strength  of  will  and  their  undying  national  vitality  in 
their  resistance  to  Protestantism — a  resistance  which  has  been 
called  opposition  to  progress,  but  the  success  of  which  to-day 
proves  beyond  question  that  they  were  right. 

It  was,  the  reader  may  remark,  a  resistance  to  the  whole  of 
Northern  Europe,  wherein  their  island  was  included.  For,  the 
whole  of  Northern  Europe  rebelled  against  the  Church  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  to  enter  upon  a  new  road  of 
progress  and  civilization,  as  it  has  been  called,  ending  finally  in 
the  frightful  abyss  of  materialism  and  atheism  which  now  gapes 
under  the  feet  of  modern  nations — an  abyss  in  whose  yawning 
womb  nullus  ordo,  sed  sempitemus  horror  habitat.  The  end  of 
that  progress  is  now  plain  enough :  political  and  social  convul- 
sions, without  any  other  probable  issue  than  final  anarchy,  unless 
nations  consent  at  last  to  retrace  their  steps  and  reorganize  Chris- 
tendom. 

But  this  was  not  apparent  to  the  eyes  of  ordinary  thinkers 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  Only  a  few  great 
minds  saw  the  logical  consequences  of  Jhe.  pfemises_laid  down 
by  Protestantism,  and  predicted  something  of  what  we  now 
see. 

The  Irish  was  the  only  northern  nation  which,  to  a  man,  op- 
posed the  terrible  delusion,  and,  at  the  cost  of  all  that  is  dear, 
waged  against  it  a  relentless  war. 

"  To  a  man  ;  "  for,  in  spite  of  all  the  wiles  of  Henry  Till., 
who  brought  every  resource  of  his  political  talent  into  play,  in 
order  to  win  over  to  his  side  the  great  chieftains  of  the  nation — 
in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  Elizabeth,  who  either  tried  to  over- 
come their  resistance  by  her  numerous  armies,  or,  by  the  allure- 
ments of  her  court,  strove  her  best,  like  her  father,  to  woo  to  her 
allegiance  the  great  leaders  of  the  chief  clans,  particularly  O'Neill 
of  Tyrone — at  the  end  of  her  long  reign,  after  nearly  a  hundred 
years  of  Protestantism,  only  sixty  Irishmen  of  all  classes  had  re- 
ceived the  new  religion. 

At  first3  the  struggle  assumed  a  character  more  political  than 


PREFACE. 


religious,  and  Queen  Elizabeth  did  her  best  to  give  it,  apparently, 
that  character.  But  for  her,  religion  meant  politics ;  and,  had 
the  Irish  consented  to  accept  the  religious  changes  introduced 

by  her  father  and  herself,  f.hp-rp.  wnyilfl  hayp  Lppti  nn  q^P^inn  r>f 

'jre^&likm^and  no  army  would  have  been  sent  to  crush  it.  The 
Irish  chieftains  knew  this  well ;  hence,  whenever  the  queen  came 
to  terms  with  them,  the  first  article  on  which  they  invariably  in- 
sisted was  the  freedom  of  their  religion. 

But,  under  the  Stuarts,  and  later  on,  the  mask  was  entirely 
thrown  aside,  and  the  question  between  England  and  Ireland  re- 
duced itself,  we  may  say,  to  one  of  religion  merely.  All  the 
political  entanglements  in  which  tlie.Irishlfound  themselves  in- 
volvexPby  their  loyalty  to  the  Stuarts  and  their  opposition  to  the 
RoundhealfcTlfever  constitu'febT  the  ^chief  difficulty  of  their  posi- 
tion. They  were  "  Papists  : "  this  was  their  great  crime  in  the 
eyes  of  their  enemies.  Cromwell  would  certainly  never  have 
endeavored  to  exterminate  them  as  he  did,  had  they  apostatized 
and  become  ranting  Puritans.  One  of  our  main  points  in  the 
following  pages  will  be  to  give  prominence  to  this  view  of  the 
question.  If  it  had  been  understood  from  the  first,  the  army  of 
heroes  who  died  for  their  God  and  their  country  would  long  ere 
this  have  been  enrolled  in  the  number  of  Christian  martyrs. 

The  subsequent  policy  of  England,  chiefly  after  the  English 
Revolution  of  1688  and  the  defeat  of  James  II.,  clearly  shows  the 
soundness  of  our  interpretation  of  history.  The  a  penal  code," 
under  Queen  Anne,  and  later  on,  at  least  has  the  merit  of  being 
free  from  hypocrisy  and  cant.  It  is  an  open  religious  persecu- 
tion, as,  in  fact,  it  had  been  from  the  beginning. 

We  shall  have,  therefore,  before  our  eyes  the  great  spectacle 
of  a  nation  suffering  a  martyrdom  of  three  centuries.  All  the 
persecutions  of  -the  Christians  under  the  Roman  emperors  pale 
before  this  long  era  of  penalty  and  blood.  The  Irish,  by  numer- 
ous decrees  of  English  kings  and  parliaments,  were  deprived  of 
every  thing  which  a  man  not  guilty  of  crime  has  a  right  to  enjoy. 
Land,  citizenship,  the  right  of  education,  of  acquiring  property, 
of  living  on  their  own  soil — every  thing  was  denied  them,  and 
death  in  every  form  was  decreed,  in  every  line  of  the  new  Prot- 
estant code,  to  men,  women,  and  even  children,  whose  only  crime 
consisted  in  remaining  faithful  to  their  religion. 

But  chiefly  during  the  Cromwellian  war  and  the  nine  years 
of  the  Protector's  reign  were  they  doomed  to  absolute,  unrelent- 
ing destruction.  Never  has  any  thing  in  the  whole  history  of 
mankind  equalled  it  in  horror,  unless  the  devastation  of  Asia 
and  Eastern  Europe  under  Zengis  and  Timour. 

There  is,  therefore,  at  the  bottom  of  the  Irish  character,  hid- 
den under  an  appearance  of  light-headedness,  mutability  of  feei- 
ng— nay,  at  times,  futility  and  even  childishness — a  depth  of 


XX 


PREFACE. 


perseverance,  constancy,  and  true  heroism,  nn equalled  by  any 
other  nation  of  modern  times. 

And  this  it  is  which  has  preserved  to  them  that  intense  spirit 
of  nationality,  so  strong  after  every  means  had  been  adopted  to 
crush  it  out.  The  hundred  years  which  followed  the  penal  code 
were  an  age  of  gloom  for  them.  Thev  were  mere  slaves,  and 
seemed  to  have  lost  all  courage,  all  desire  even  of  improving 
their  condition.  After  so  many  heroic  struggles,  they  appeared 
to  surrender  all  claim,  not  only  to  independence,  but  to  a  con- 
dition barely  supportable.  They  were  forgotten  by  Europe,  and 
might  have  been  considered  as  wiped  out  of  existence.  who  at 
that  time  would  have  dreamed  of  their  resurrection  at  any  future 
day  ? 

Yet  thev  lived.  Thev  had,  it  is  true,  only  one  token  of  na- 
tionality,  but  this  was  enough  to  preserve  unquenched  the  sacred 
fire  of  true  patriotism :  they  had  the  wooden  altars  of  their  glens, 
of  their  morasses,  of  their  mountain-fastnesses ;  they  had  a  few 
hunted  priests  officiating  for  them  in  the  darkness  of  the  night, 
beneath  the  canopy  of  heaven,  or  in  the  gloom  of  forests.  There, 
before  a  rude  crucifix,  they  knelt,  one  standing  sentinel  on  some 
projecting  rock,  or  at  the  entrance  of  the  woods,  to  give  the  alarm 
if  he  saw  the  u  wolf"  coming  to  devour  them 

This  alone  saved  them  as  a  nation,  and  prepared  the  era  of 
their  success  which  is  now  nearly  complete.  For,  have  they  not 
at  last  obtained  almost  all  thev  ever  fought  for  ?  Have  they  not 
at  last  freedom  of  religion,  freedom  of  education,  the  full  right  of 
acquiring  property,  some  political  influence,  liberty  of  speaking 
aloud  to  their  would-be  oppressors,  and  of  calling  on  Europe  to 
witness  the  justice  of  their  claims  ?  Are  they  not,  perhaps,  on 
the  point  of  recovering  u  home  rule  ? n  And  how  long  will  their 
soil  remain  in  possession  of  absentee  landlords,  who  take  to  them- 
selves the  fat  of  the  land,  and  abandon  the  inhabitants  of  the 
country  to  the  periodical  devastation  of  famine  and  the  constant 
degradation  of  pauperism  ? 

Several  attempts  have  been  made  to  introduce  among  them 
the  modern  revolutionary  spirit.  A  few  individuals  have  been 
inoculated  with  it ;  the  mass  of  the  people  have  remained  intact, 
owing  to  their  religious  steadfastness,  and  to  their  intimate  con- 
viction that  the  hierarchy  of  the  Church  and  the  priesthood  are 
now,  as  ever,  the  true  leaders  of  the  people.  May  they  continue 
firm  in  that  holy  conviction ! 

Hence,  what  is  now  passing  in  Ireland  ought  not  to  be  con- 
sidered as  having  any  thing  to  do  with  the  general  upheaval  of 
European  passions,  and  with  the  Continental  convulsions  of  so- 
ciety. The  object  of  the  Irish  has  never  been,  and  cannot  now 
be,  to  shake  the  foundation-stones  of  the  social  fabric  They 
want  to  replace  their  national  status  on  the  basis  of  true  order 


PREFACE. 


xxi 


according  to  the  eternal  laws  which  God  gave  to  mankind. 
Nothing  else  is  in  their  mind;  they  are  pursuing  no  guilty 
and  shadowy  Utopia.  Who  knows,  then,  whether  their  small 
island  may  not  yet  become  the  beacon-light  which,  guiding 
other  nations,  shall  at  a  future  day  save  Europe  from  the  uni- 
versal shipwreck  which  threatens  her?  The  providential  mis- 
sion of  Ireland  is  far  from  being  accomplished,  and  men  may 
yet  see  that  not  in  vain  has  she  been  tried  so  long  in  the  cru- 
cible of  affliction. 

Another  part  of  the  providential  plan  as  affecting  her  will 
show  itself,  and  excite  our  admiration,  in  the  latter  portion  of 
the  work  we  undertake. 

The  Irish  are  no  longer  confined  to  the  small  island  which 
gave  them  birth.  From  the  beginning  of  their  great  woes,  they 
have  known  the  bitterness  of  exile.  Their  nobility  were  the  first 
to  leave  in  a  body  a  land  wherein  they  could  no  longer  exist ; 
and,  during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  they  made 
the  Irish  name  illustrious  on  all  the  battle-fields  of  Europe.  At 
the  same  time,  many  of  their  priests  and  monks,  unable  longer  to 
labor  among  their  countrymen,  spent  their  lives  in  the  libraries 
of  Italy,  Belgium,  and  Spain,  and  gave  to  the  world  those  im- 
mense works  so  precious  now  to  the  antiquarian  and  historian. 
Every  one  knows  what  Montalembert,  in  particular,  found  in 
them.  They  may  be  said  to  have  preserved  the  annals  of  their 
nation  from  total  ruin  ;  and  the  names  of  the  O'Clearys,  of  Ward 
and  Wadding,  of  Colgan  and  Lynch,  are  becoming  better  known 
and  appreciated  every  day,  as  their  voluminous  works  are  more 
studied  and  better  understood. 

But  much  more  remarkable  still  is  the  immense  spread  of  the 
people  itself  during  the  present  age,  so  fruitful  in  happy  results 
for  the  Church  of  Christ  and  the  good  of  mankind.  We  may  say 
that  the  labors  .of  the  Irish  missionaries  during  the  seventh  and 
eighth  centuries  are  to-day  eclipsed  by  the  truly  missionary  work 
of  a  whole  nation  spread  now  over  j^orth  America,  the  West  In- 
dia Islands,  the  East  Indies,  and  the  wilds  of  Australia ;  in  a 
word,  wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken.  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  visible  causes  of  that  strange  "  exodus,"  there  is 
an  invisible  cause  clear  enough  to  any  one  who  meditates  on  the 
designs  of  God  over  his  Church.  There  is  no  presumption  in 
attributing  to  God  himself  what  could  only  come  from  Him. 
The  catholicity  of  the  Church  was  to  be  spread  and  preserved 
through  and  in  all  those  vast  regions  colonized  now  by  the 
adventurous  English  nation ;  and  no  better,  no  more  simple 
way  of  effecting  this  could  be  conceived  than  the  one  whose 
workings  we  see  in  those  colonies  so  distant  from  the  mother- 
country. 

This,  for  the  time  being,  is  the  chief  providential  mission  of 


xxii 


PREFACE. 


Ireland,  and  it  is  truly  a  noble  one,  undertaken  and  executed  in 
a  noble  manner  by  so  many  thousands,  nay  millions,  of  men  and 
women — poor,  indeed,  in  worldly  goods  when  they  start  on  their 
career,  but  rich  in  faith  ;  and  it  is  as  true  now  as  it  has  ever  been 
from  the  beginning  of  Christianity,  that  kcec  est  victoria  nostra, 
fides  vestra. 

These  few  words  of  our  Preface  would  not  suffice  to  prepare 
the  reader  for  the  high  importance  of  this  stupendous  phenome- 
non. We  purpose,  therefore,  devoting  our  second  chapter  to  the 
subject,  as  a  preparation  for  the  very  interesting  details  we  shall 
furnish  subsequently,  as  it  is  proper  that,  from  the  very  threshold, 
an  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  edifice,  and  of  the  entire  propor- 
tions it  is  destined  to  assume. 

We  have  so  far  sketched,  as  briefly  as  possible,  what  the  fol- 
lowing pages  will  develop  ;  and  the  reader  may  now  begin  to 
understand  what  we  said  at  starting,  that  no  other  nation  in  Eu- 
rope offers  so  interesting  an  object  of  study  and  reflection. 

Plato  has  said  that  the  most  meritorious  spectacle  in  the  eyes 
of  God  was  that  of  "  a  just  man  struggling  with  adversity." 
What  must  it  be  when  a  whole  nation,  during  nine  long  ages, 
offers  to  Heaven  the  most  sublime  virtues  in  the  midst  of  the 
extremest  trials  ?  Are  not  the  great  lessons  which  such  a  con- 
test presents  worthy  of  study  and  admiration  % 

We  purpose  studying  them,  although  we  cannot  pretend  to 
render  full  justice  to  such  a  theme.  And,  returning  for  a  mo- 
ment to  the  considerations  with  which  we  started,  we  can  truly 
say  that,  in  the  whole  range  of  modern  history,  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult, if  not  impossible,  to  find  a  national  life  to  compare  with 
that  of  poor,  despised  Ireland.  Neither  do  we  pretend  to  write 
the  history  itself ;  our  object  is  more  humble :  we  merely  pen 
some  considerations  suggested  naturally  by  the  facts  which  we 
suppose  to  be  already  known,  with  the  purpose  of  arriving  at  a 
true  appreciation  of  the  character  of  the  people.  For  it  is  the 
people  itself  we  study ;  the  reader  will  meet  with  comparatively 
few  individual  names. 

We  shall  find,  moreover,  that  the  nation  has  never  varied. 
Its  history  is  an  unbroken  series  of  the  same  heroic  facts,  the 
same  terrible  misfortunes.  The  actors  change  continually  ;  the 
outward  circumstances  at  every  moment  present  new  aspects,  so 
that  the  interest  never  flags  ;  but  the  spirit  of  the  struggle  is  ever 
the  same,  and  the  latest  descendants  of  the  first  O'lN  eills  and 
O'Donnells  burn  with  the  same  sacred  fire,  and  are  inspired  by 
the  same  heroic  aspirations,  as  their  fathers. 

Happily,  the  gloom  is  at  length  lighted  up  by  returning  day. 
The  contest  has  lost  its  ferocity,  and  we  are  no  longer  sur- 
rounded by  the  deadly  shade  which  obscured  the  sky  a  hundred 
years  ago.    Then  it  was  hard  to  believe  that  the  nation  could 


PREFACE. 


xxiii 


ever  rise  ;  her  final  success  seemed  almost  an  impossibility.  We 
now  see  that  those  who  then  despaired  sinned  agaiust  Provi- 
dence, which  waited  for  its  own  time  to  arrive  and  vindicate  its 
ways.  And  it  is  chiefly  on  account  of  the  bright  hope  which 
begins  to  dawn  that  our  subject  should  possess  for  all  a  lively  in- 
terest, and  fill  the  Catholic  heart  with  glowing  sympathy  and 
ardent  thankfulness  to  GrocL 


TABLE  OF  COJNTEiNTS. 


Pass 


Ohapteb  L  The  Celtic  Race   1 

IT.  The  World  under  the  Lead  of  European  Races. — Mission 

of  the  Irish  Race  in  the  Movement    .       .       .   •   .  39 

III.  The  Irish  better  prepared  to  receive  Christianity  than 

other  Nations   60 

IV.  How  the  Irish  received  Christianity      ....  84 
V.  The  Christian  Irish  and  the  Pagan  Danes  .       .       .  .106 

VI.  The  Irish  Free-Clans  and  Anglo-Norman  Feudalism     .  133 
VII.  Ireland  separated  from  Europe. — A  Triple  Episode    .  .159 

Vm.  The  Irish  and  the  Tudors.— Henry  VOL      ...  176 

IX.  The  Irish  and  the  Tudors. — Elizabeth. — The  Undaunted 

Nobility.— The  Suffering  Church        .      .      .  .204 

X.  England  prepared  for  the  Reception  of  Protestantism — 

Ireland  not   229 

XI.  The  Irish  and  the  Stuarts. — Loyalty  and  Confiscation      .  257 
XII.  A  Century  of  Gloom.— The  Penal  Laws       ...  292 

XIH.  Resurrection. — Delusive  Hopes   327 

XIV.  Resurrection. — Emigration   374 

XV.  The  "Exodus"  and  its  Effects   425 

XVI.  Moral  Force  all-sufficient  for  the  Resurrection  of  Ireland  485 


THE  IRISH  RACE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    CELTIC  RACE. 

Nations  which  preserve,  as  it  were,  a  perpetual  youth,  should 
be  studied  from  their  origin.  Never  having  totally  changed, 
some  of  their  present  features  may  be  recognized  at  the  very 
cradle  of  their  existence,  and  the  strangeness  of  the  fact  sets  out 
in  bolder  relief  their  actual  peculiarities.  Hence  we  consider  it 
to  our  purpose  to  examine  the  Celtic  race  first,  as  we  may  know 
it  from  ancient  records  :  What  it  was  ;  what  it  did  ;  what  were 
its  distinctive  features  ;  what  its  manners  and  chief  characteris- 
tics. A  strong  light  will  thus  be  thrown  even  on  the  Irish  of 
our  own  days.  Our  words  must  necessarily  be  few  on  so  exten- 
sive a  subject ;  but,  few  as  they  are,  they  will  not  be  unimpor- 
tant in  our  investigations. 

In  all  the  works  of  God,  side  by  side  with  the  general  order 
resulting  from  seemingly  symmetric  laws,  an  astonishing  variety 
of  details  everywhere  shows  itself,  producing  on  the  mind  of  man 
the  idea  of  infinity,  as  effectually  as  the  wonderful  aspect  of  a 
seemingly  boundless  universe.  This  variety  is  visible,  first  in 
the  heavenly  bodies,  as  they  are  called  ;  star  differing  from  star, 
planet  from  planet ;  even  the  most  minute  asteroids  never  show- 
ing themselves  to  us  two  alike,  but  always  offering  differences  in 
size,  of  form,  of  composition. 

This  variety  is  visible  to  us  chiefly  on  our  globe  ;  in  the  in- 
finite multiplicity  of  its  animal  forms,  in  the  wonderful  insect 
tribes,  and  in  the  brilliant  shells  floating  in  the  ocean ;  visible 
also  in  the  incredible  number  of  trees,  shrubs,  herbs,  down  to 
the  most  minute  vegetable  organisms,  spread  with  such  reckless 
abundance  on  the  surface  of  our  dwelling ;  visible,  finally,  in 
the  infinity  of  different  shapes  assumed  by  inorganic  matter. 

But  what  is  yet  more  wonderful  and  seemingly  unaccountable 
is  that,  taking  every  species  of  being  in  particular,  and  looking 
1 


2 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


at  any  two  individuals  of  the  same  species,  we  would  consider  it 
an  astonishing  effect  of  chance,  were  we  to  meet  with  two  objects 
of  our  study  perfectly  alike.  The  mineralogist  notices  it,  if  he 
finds  in  the  same  group  of  crystals  two  altogether  similar ;  the 
botanist  would  express  his  astonishment  if,  on  comparing  two 
specimens  of  the  same  plant,  he  found  no  difference  between 
them.  The  same  may  be  said  of  birds,  of  reptiles,  of  mammalia, 
of  the  same  kind.  A  close  observer  will  even  easily  detect  dis- 
similarities between  the  double  organs  of  the  same  person,  be- 
tween the  two  eyes  of  his  neighbor,  the  two  hands  of  a  friend, 
the  two  feet  of  a  stranger  whom  he  meets. 

It  is  therefore  but  consistent  with  general  analogy  that  in  the 
moral  as  well  as  in  the  physical  faculties  of  man,  the  same  ever- 
recurring  variety  should  appear,  in  the  features  of  the  face,  in 
the  shape  of  the  limbs,  in  the  moving  of  the  muscles,  as  well  as 
in  the  activity  of  thought,  in  the  mobility  of  humor,  in  the  com- 
bination of  passions,  propensities,  sympathies,  and  aversions. 

But,  at  the  same  time,  with  all  these  peculiarities  perceptible 
in  individuals,  men,  when  studied  attentively,  show  themselves 
in  groups,  as  it  were,  distinguished  from  other  groups  by  peculi- 
arities of  their  own,  which  are  generally  called  characteristics  of 
race ;  and  although,  according  to  various  systems,  these  charac- 
teristics are  made  to  expand  or  contract  at  will,  to  serve  an  a 
priori  purpose,  and  sustain  a  preconcerted  theory,  yet  there  are, 
with  respect  to  them,  startling  facts  which  no  one  can  gainsay, 
and  which  are  worthy  of  serious  attention. 

Two  of  these  facts  may  be  stated  in  the  following  proposi- 
tions : 

I.  At  the  cradle  of  a  race  or  nation  there  must  have  been  a 
type  imprinted  on  its  progenitor,  and  passing  from  him  to  all 
his  posterity,  which  distinguishes  it  from  all  others. 
J    II.  The  character  of  a  race  once  establish p.d.,  _cannot  be 
eradicated  without  an^alaiqsL  tOLaljlT^ppearance  ofjfag  people. 

The  proofs  -of  "these i  "propositions  would  require  long  details 
altogether  foreign  to  our  present  purpose,  as  we  are  not  writing 
on  ethnology.  We  will  take  them  for  granted,  as  otherwise  we 
may  say  that  the  whole  history  of  man  would  be  unintelligible. 
If,  however,  writers  are  found  who  apply  to  their  notion  of  race 
all  the  inflexibility  of  physical  laws,  and  who  represent  history 
as  a  rigid  system  of  facts  chained  together  by  a  kind  of  fatality ; 
if  a  school  has  sprung  up  among  historians  to  do  away  with  the 
moral  responsibility  of  individuals  and  of  nations,  it  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  tell  the  reader  that  nothing  is  so  far  from  our  mind 
as  to  adopt  ideas  destructive,  in  fact,  to  all  morality. 

It  is  our  belief  that  there  is  no  more  "  necessity  "  in  the 
leanings  of  race  with  respect  to  nations,  than  there  is  m  the  cor- 
rupt instincts  of  our  fallen  nature  with  respect  to  individuals. 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


3 


The  teachings  of  faith  have  clearly  decided  this  in  the  latter 
case,  and  the  consequence  of  this  authoritative  decision  carries 
with  it  the  determination  of  the  former. 

According  to  the  doctrine  of  St.  Augustine,  nations  are  re- 
warded or  punished  in  this  world,  because  there  is  no  future  ex- 
istence for  them  ;  but  the  fact  of  rewards  and  punishments 
awarded  them  shows  that  their  life  is  not  a  series  of  necessary 
sequences  such  as  prevail  in  physics,  and  that  the  manifestations 
or  phenomena  of  history,  past,  present,  or  future,  cannot  resolve 
-themselves  into  the  workings  of  absolute  laws. 

Race,  in  our  opinion,  is  only  one  of  those  mysterious  forces 
which  play  upon  the  individual  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,' 
which  affect  alike  all  the  members  of  the  same  family,  and  give 
it  a  peculiarity  of  its  own,  without,  however,  interfering  in  ther^f 
least  with"tl\e  moral  freedoirf_of  the  individual ;  and  as  in  him 
there  is~iree-wili,  so  also  in  the  family  itself  to  which  he  belongs 
may  God  find  cause  for  approval  or  disapproval.  The  heart  of  a 
Christian  ought  to  be  too  full  of  gratitude  and  respect  for  Di- 
vine Providence  to  take  any  other  view  of  history. 

It  would  be  presumptuous  on  our  part  to  attempt  an  explana- 
tion of  the  object  God  proposed  to  himself  in  originating  such 
a  diversity  in  human  society.  We  can  only  say  that  it  appears 
He  did  not  wish  all  mankind  to  be  ever  subject  to  the  same  rule, 
the  same  government  and  institutions.  His  Church  alone  was  to 
bear  the  character  of  universality.  Outside  of  her,  variety  was 
to  be  the  rule  in  human  affairs  as  in  all  things  else.  A  universal 
despotism  was  never  to  become  possible. 

This  at  once  explains  why  the  posterity  of  Japhet  is  so  differ- 
ent from  that  of  Sem  and  of  Cham. 

In  each  of  those  great  primitive  stocks,  an  all-wise  Providence 
introduced  a  large  number  of  sub-races,  if  we  may  be  allowed  to 
call  them  so,  out  of  which  are  sprung  the  various  nations  whose 
intermingling  forms  the  web  of  human  history.  Our  object  is  to 
consider  only  the  Celtic  branch.  For,  whatever  may  be  the 
various  theories  propounded  on  the  subject  of  the  colonization 
of  Ireland,  from  whatever  part  of  the  globe  the  primitive  inhabi- 
tants may  be  supposed  to  have  come,  one  thing  is  certain,  to-day 
the  race  is  yet  one,  in  spite  of  the  foreign  blood  infused  into  it 
by  so  many  men  of  other  stocks.  _  Although  the  race  was  at  one 
time  on  the  verge  of  extinction  by  Cromwell,- it  has  finally  al>.. 
sorbed  all  the  others  ;  it  has  conquered  ;  and,  whoever  has  to  deal 
With  trurtfishmen,  feels  at  once  that  he  deals^with. a  primitive, 
people,  whose  ancestors  dwelt  ,  on  the  islancT  thousands  of  years 
ago."  Some  slight  differences  may  be  observed  in  the  people  of  the 
various  provinces  of  the  island  ;  there  may  be  various  dialects  in 
their  language,  different  appearance  in  their  looks,  some  slight 
divergence  in  their  disposition  or  manners ;  it  cannot  be  other- 


4 


THE  CELTIC  PwACE. 


wise,  since,  as  we  have  seen,  no  two  individuals  of  the  human 
family  can  be  found  perfectly  alike.  But,  in  spite  of  all  this, 
they  remain  Celts  to  this  day  ;  they  belong  undoubtedly  to  that 
Btock  formerly  wide-spread  throughout  Europe,  and  now  almost 
confined  to  their  island ;  for '  the  character  of  the  same  race  in 
"Wales,  Scotland,  and  Brittany,  has  not  been,  and  could  not  be, 
kgpt  so.  pure  as- in  .Erin  ;  so  that  in  our  age  the  inhabitants  of 
those  countries  have  b e c o mje_  m_Qie_BJid  -moxe^fused^wilBr"  their 
British  and  Gallic  neighbors. 

"We  must,  therefore,  at  the  beginning  of  this  investigation, 
state  briefly  what  we  know  of  the  Celtic  race  in  ancient  times, 
and  examine  whether  the  Irish  of  to-day  do  not  reproduce  its 
chief  characteristics. 

"We  do  not  propose,  however,  in  the  present  study,  referring 
to  the  physical  peculiarities  of  the  Celtic  tribes ;  we  do  not 
know  what  those  were  two  or  three  thousand  years  ago.  We 

must  confine  ourselves  to  moral  propensities  anrl  In  mana^  and 

for  this  view  of  the  subject  we  have  sufficient  materials  whereon 
to  draw.  (l 
fay  We  first  remark  in  this  race  an  imme^gfi  pnwpr  nf  gxpflnfijoT^ 
^  when  not  checkea  by  truly  insurmountable  obstacles ;  a  power 
of  expansion  which  did  not  necessitate  for  its  workings  an  unin- 
habited and  wild  territory,  but  which  could  show  ita  p^prory  and 
xyakp  ifs  fnrr»g  in  the  midst  of  already  thicHy-settled  regions, 
and  among  adverse  and  warlike  nations. 

As  far  as  history  can  carry  us  back,  the  whole  of  "Western 
Europe,  namely^  Gaul,  a  part  of  Spain,  Northern  Italy,  and  what 
we  call  to-day  the  British  Isles,  are  found  to  be  peopled  by  a  race 
apparently  of  the  same  origin,  divided  into  an  immense  number 
of  small  republics ;  governed  patriarchally  in  the  form  of  clans, 
called  by  Julius  Caesar,  "  Civitates."  Tlie  Greeks  called  them 
Celts,  "  Keltai."  They  do  not  appear  to  have  adopted  a  common 
name  for  themselves,  as  the  idea  of  what  we  call  nationality 
would  never  seem  to  have  occurred  to  them.  Yet  the  name  of 
Gaels  in  the  British  Isles,  and  of  Gauls  in  France  and  Northern 
Italy,  seems  identical.  Not  only  did  they  fill  the  large  expanse 
of  territory  we  have  mentioned,  but  they  multiplied  so  fast,  that 
they  were  compelled  to  send  out  armed  colonies  in  every  direc 
tion,  set  as  they  were  in  the^micTst  of  thickly-peopled  regions. 

We  possess  few  details  of  their  first  invasion  of  Spain ;  but 
Boman  history  has  made  us  all  acquainted  with  their  valor.  It 
was  in  the  first  days  of  the  Republic  that  an  army  of  Gauls  took 
possession  of  Home,  and  the  names  of  Manlius  and  Camillus  are 
no  better  known  in  history  than  that  of  Brenn,  called  by  Liw, 
Brennus.  His  celebrated  answer,  66  Yae  victis,"  will  live  as 
ong  as  the  world. 

Later  on,  in  the  second  century  before  Christ,  we  see  another 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


5 


army  of  Celts  starting  from  Pannonia,  on  the  Danube,  where 
they  had  previously  settled,  to  invade  Greece.  Another  Brenn 
is  at  the  head  of  it.  Macedonia  and  Albania  were  soon  con- 
quered ;  and,  it  is  said,  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  race  may 
still  be  remarked  in  many  Albanians.  Thessaly  could  not  resist 
the  impetuosity  of  the  invaders  ;  the  Thermopylae  were  occupied 
by  Gallic  battalions,  and  that  celebrated  defile,  where  three  hun- 
dred Spartans  once  detained  the  whole  army  of  Xerxes,  could 
offer  no  obstacle  to  Celtic  bravery.  Hellas,  sacred  Hellas,  came 
then  under  the  power  of  the  Gauls,  and  the  Temple  of  Delphi 
was  already  in  sight  of  Brenn  and  his  warriors,  when,  according 
to  Greek  historians,  a  violent  earthquake,  the  work  of  the  of- 
fended gods,  threw  confusion  into  the  Celtic  ranks,  which  were 
subsequently  easily  defeated  and  destroyed  by  the  Greeks. 

A  branch  of  this  army  of  the  Delphic  Brenn  had  separated 
from  the  main  body  on  the  frontiers  of  Thrace,  taken  pos- 
session of  Byzantium,  the  future  Constantinople,  and,  crossing 
the  straits,  established  itself  in  the  heart  of  Asia  Minor,  and 
there  founded  the  state  of  Galatia,  or  Gallo-Greece,  which  so 
long  bore  their  name,  and  for  several  centuries  influenced  the 
affairs  of  Asia  and  of  the  whole  Orient,  where  they  established  a 
social  state  congenial  to  their  tastes  and  customs.  But  the 
Romans  soon  after  invading  Asia  Minor,  the  twelve  clannish  re- 
publics formerly  founded  were,  according  to  Strabo,  first  reduced 
to  three,  then  to  two,  until  finally  Julius  Caesar  made  Dejotar 
king  of  the  whole  country. 

The  Celts  could  not  easily  brook  such  a  change  of  social  rela- 
tions; but,  unable  to  cope  against  Roman  power,  they  came,  as 
usual,  to  wrangle  among  themselves.  The  majority  pronounced 
for  another  chieftain,  named  Bogitar,  and  succeeded  in  forming 
a  party  in  Rome  in  his  favor.  Clodius,  in  an  assembly  of  the 
Roman  people,  obtained  a  decree  confirmatory  of  his  authority, 
and  he  took  possession  of  Pessinuntum,  and  of  the  celebrated 
Temple  of  Cybele. 

The  history  of  this  branch  of  the  Celts,  nevertheless,  did 
not  close  with  the  evil  fortunes  of  their  last  king.  According 
to  Justinus,  they  swarmed  all  over  Asia.  Having  lost  their 
autonomy  as  a  nation,  they  became,  as  it  were,  the  Swiss  merce- 
naries of  the  whole  Orient.  Egypt,  Syria,  Pontus,  called  them 
to  their  defence.  "  Such,"  says  Justinus,  "  was  the  terror  ex- 
cited bv  their  name,  and  the  constant  success  of  their  undertak- 
ingB,  that  no  king  on  his  throne  thought  himself  secure,  and  no 
fallen  prince  imagined  himself  able  to  recover  his  power,  except 
with  the  help  of  the  ever-ready  Celts  of  those  countries." 

This  short  sketch  suffices  to  show  their  power  of  expansion 
in  ancient  times  among  thickly-settled  populations  When  we 
have  shown,  farther  on,  how  to-day  they  are  spreading  all  over 


6 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


the  world,  not  looking  to  wild  and  desert  countries,  but  to  large 
centres  of  population  in  the  English  colonies,  we  shall  be  able  to 
convince  ourselves  that  they  still  present  the  same  cj~»  a.r a c tft r i s  t  ix: 
If  they  do  not  bear  arms  in  their  hands,  it  is  owing  to  altered 
circumstances ;  but  their  actual  expansion  bears  a  close  resem- 
blance to  that  of  ancient  times,  and  the  similarity  of  effect  shows 
the  similarity  of  character. 

We  pass  now  to  a  new  feature  in  the  race,  which  has  not,  to 
our  knowledge,  been  sufficiently  dwelt  upon.  All  their  migra- 
tions in  old  times  were  across  continents ;  and  if,  occasionally, 
they  crossed  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  they  did  so  always  in  for- 
eign vessels. 

The  Celtic  race,  as  we  have  seen,  occupied  the  whole  of 
"Western  Europe.  They  had,  therefore,  numerous  harbors  on  the 
Atlantic,  and  some  excellent  ones  on  the  Mediterranean.  Many 
passed  the  greater  portion  of  their  lives  on  the  sea,  supporting 
themselves  by  fishing ;  yet  they  never  thought  of  constructing 
and  arming  large  fleets  ;  they  never  fought  at  sea  in  vessels  ot 
their  own,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  naval  battle  between 
Julius  Caesar  and  the  Yeneti,  off  the  coast  of  Armorica,  where, 
in  one  day,  the  Roman  general  destroyed  the  only  maritime 
armament  which  the  Celts  ever  possessed. 

And  even  this  fact  is  not  an  exception  to  the  general  rule ; 
for  M.  de  Penhouet,  the  greatest  antiquarian,  perhaps,  in  Celtic 
lore  in  Brittany,  has  proved  that  the  Yeneti  of  Western  Gaul 
were  not  really  Celts,  but  rather  a  colony  of  Carthaginians,  the 
only  one  probably  remaining,  in  the  time  of  Caesar,  of  those  once 
numerous  foreign  colonies  of  the  old  enemies  of  Rome. 

Still  this  strange  anomaly,  an  anomaly  which  is  observable  in 
no  other  people  living  on  an  extensive  coast,  was  not  produced 
by  ignorance  of  the  uses  and  importance  of  large  fleets.  From 
the  first  they  held  constant  intercourse  with  the  great  navigators 
of  antiquity.  The  Celtic  harbors  teemed  with  the  craft  of  hardy 
seamen,  who  came  from  Phoenicia,  Carthage,  and  finally  from 
Rome.  Heeren,  in  his  researches  on  the  Phoenicians,  proves  it 
for  that  very  early  age,  and  mentions  the  strange  fact  that  the 
name  of  Ireland  with  them  was  the  "  Holy  Isle."  For  several 
centuries,  the  Carthaginians,  in  particular,  used  the  harbors  of 
Spain,  of  Gaul,  even  of  Erin  and  Britain,  as  their  own.  The 
Celtic  inhabitants  of  those  countries  allowed  them  to  settle  peace- 
ably among  them,  to  trade  with  them,  to  use  their  cities  as  em- 
poriums, to  call  them,  in  fact,  Carthaginian  harbors,  although 
that  African  nation  never  really  colonized  the  country,  does  not 
appear  to  have  made  war  on  the  inhabitants  in  order  to  occupy 
it,  except  in  a  few  instances,  when  thwarted,  probably,  in  their 
commercial  enterprises  ;  but  they  always  lived  on  peaceful  terms 
with  the  aborigiDes,  whom  they  benefited  by  their  trade, 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


7 


doubtless,  enlightened  by  the  narrative  of  their  expeditions  in 
distant  lands. 

Is  it  not  a  strikingly  strange  fact  that,  under  such  circum- 
stances, the  Celts  should  never  have  thought  of  possessing  ves- 
sels of  their  own,  if  not  to  push  the  enterprises  of  an  extensive 
commerce,  for  which  they  never  showed  the  slightest  inclina- 
tion, at  least  for  the  purpose  of  shipping  their  colonies  abroad, 
and  crossing  directly  to  Greece  from  Celtiberia,  for  instance,  or 
from  their  Italian  colony  of  the  Yeneti,  replaced  in  modern 
times  by  maritime  Venice?  Yet  so  it  was  ;  and  the  great  classic 
scholar,  Heeren,  in  his  learned  researches  on  the  Phoenicians  and 
Carthaginians,  remarks  it  with  surprise.  The  chief  reason 
which  he  assigns  for  the  success  of  those  southern  navigators 
from  Carthage  in  establishing  their  colonies  everywhere,  is  the 
fact  of  no  people  in  Spain,  Gaul,  or  the  British  Isles,  possessing 
at  the  time  a  navy  of  their  own  ;  and,  finding  it  so  surprising, 
he  does  not  attempt  to  explain  it,  as  indeed  it  really  remains 
without  any  possible  explanation,  save  the  lack  of  inclination 
springing  from  the  natural  promptings  of  the  race. 

What  renders  it  more  surprising  still  is,  that  individually 
they  had  no  aversion  to  a  seafaring  life  ;  not  only  many  of  them 
subsisted  by  fishing,  but  their  curraghs  covered  the  sea  all  along 
their  extensive  coasts.  They  could  pass  from  island  to  island  in 
their  small  craft.  Thus  the  Celts  of  Erin  frequently  crossed 
over  to  Scotland,  to  the  Hebrides,  from  rock  to  rock,  and  in 
Christian  times  they  went  as  far  as  the  Faroe  group,  even  as  far 
as  Iceland,  which  some  of  them  appear  to  have  attempted  to 
colonize  long  before  the  Norwegian  outlaws  went  there ;  and 
some  even  say  that  from  Erin  came  the  first  Europeans  who 
landed  on  frozen  Greenland  years  before  the  Icelandic  Northmen 
planted  establishments  in  that  dreary  country.  The  Celts,  there- 
fore, and  those  of  Erin  chiefly,  were  a  seafaring  race. 

But  to  construct  a  fleet,  to  provision  and  arm  it,  to  fill  it  with 
the  flower  of  their  youth,  and  send  them  over  the  ocean  to  plun- 
der and  slay  the  inhabitants  for  the  purpose  of  colonizing  the 
countries  they  had  previously  devastated,  such  was  never  the 
character  of  the  Celts.  They  never  engaged  extensively  in 
trade,  or  what  is  often  synonymous,  piracy.  Before  becoming 
christianized,  the  Celts  of  Ireland  crossed  over  the  narrow  chan- 
nel which  divided  them  from  Britain,  and  frequently  carried 
home  slaves ;  they  also  passed  occasionally  to  Armorica,  and 
their  annals  speak  of  warlike  expeditions  to  that  country  ;  but 
their  efforts  at  navigation  were  always  on  an  extremely  limited 
scale,  in  spite  of  the  many  inducements  offered  by  their  geo- 
graphical position.  The  fact  is  striking  when  we  compare  them 
m  that  particular  with  the  Scandinavian  free-rovers  of  the  North- 
ern Ocean. 


6 


THE  CELTIC  KACE. 


It  is,  therefore,  very  remarkable  that,  whenever  they  got  on 
board  a  boat,  It  was  always  a  single  and  open  vessel.  They  did 
so  in  pagan  times,  when  the  largest  portion  of  Western  Enrope 
was  theirs ;  they  continued  to  do  so  after  they  became  Chris- 
tians. Xbfl  aCfi  W  always  apppared  opposed  to  the  operations 
of  an  extensive  commerce,  and  to  the  flprftajjng  of  their,  pawer 
Jbj  large  fle ets. 

The  ancient  annals  of  Ireland  speak,  indeed,  of  naval  expedi- 
tions ;  but  these  expeditions  were  always  undertaken  by  a  few 
persons  in  one,  two,  or,  at  most,  three  boats,  as  that  of  the  sons 
of  Ua  Corra  ;  and  such  facts  consequently  strengthen  our  view. 
The  only  fact  which  seems  contradictory  is  supposed  to  have  oc- 
curred during  the  Danish  wars,  when  Callaghan,  King  of  Cashel, 
is  said  to  have  been  caught  in  an  ambush,  and  conveyed  a  cap- 
tive by  the  Danes,  first  to  Dublin,  then  to  Armagh,  and  finally 
to  Dundalk. 

The  troops  of  Kennedy,  son  of  Lorcan,  are  said  to  have  been 
supported  by  a  fleet  of  fifty  sail,  commanded  by  Falvey  Finn,  a 
Kerry  chieftain.  We  need  not  repeat  the  story  so  well  known 
to  all  readers  of  Irish  history.  But  this  fact  is  found  only  in  the 
work  of  Keating,  and  the  best  critics  accept  it  merely  as  an  his- 
torical romance,  which  Keating  thought  proper  to  insert  in  his 
history.  Still,  even  supposing  the  truth  of  the  story,  all  that  we 
may  conclude  from  it  is  that  the  seafaring  Danes,  at  the  end  of 
their  long  wars,  had  taught  the  Irish  to  use  the  sea  as  a  battle- 
field,  to  the  extent  of  undertaking  a  small  expedition  in  order  to 
liberate  a  beloved  chieftain. 

It  is  very  remarkable,  also,  that  according  to  the  annals  of 
Ireland,  the  naval  expeditions  nearly  always  bore  a  religious 
character,  never  one  of  trade  or  barter,  with  the  exception  of  the 
tale  of  Brescan,  who  was  swallowed  up  with  his  fifty  curraghs, 
in  which  he  traded  between  Ireland  and  Scotland. 

Nearly  all  the  other  maritime  excursions  are  voyages  under- 
taken with  a  Christian  or  Godlike  object.  Thus  our  holy  re- 
ligion was  carried  over  to  Scotland  and  the  Hebrides  by  Co- 
lumbkill  and  his  brother  monks,  who  evangelized  those  nu- 
merous groups  of  small  islands.  Crossing  in  their  skiffs,  and 
planting  the  cross  on  some  far-seen  rock  or  promontory,  they 
perched  their  monastic  cells  on  the  bold  bluffs  overlooking  the 
ocean. 

No  more  was  the  warrior  on  carnage  bent  to  be  seen  on  the 
seaboards  of  Ulster  or  the  western  coast  of  Albania,  as  Scotland 
was  then  called  ;  only  unarmed  men  dressed  in  humble  monastic 
garb  trod  those  wave-beaten  shores.  At  early  morning  they  left 
the  cove  of  their  convent ;  they  spread  their  single  sailj  and  plied 
their  well-worn  oars,  crossing  from  Colombsay  to  Iona,  or  from 
the  harbor  of  Bangor  to  the  nearest  shore  of  the  Isle  of  Man. 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


9 


At  noon  they  may  havo  met  a  brother  in  the  middle  of  the  strait 
in  his  shell  of  a  boat,  bouncing  over  the  water  toward  the  point 
they  had  left.  And  the  holy  sign  of  the  cross  passed  from  one 
monk  to  the  other,  and  the  word  of  benison  was  carried  through 
the  air,  forward  and  back,  and  the  heaven  above  was  propitious, 
and  the  wave  below  was  obedient,  while  the  hearts  of  the  two 
brothers  were  softened  by  holy  feelings  ;  and  nothing  in  the  air 
around,  on  the  dimly-visible  shores,  on  the  surface  of  the  heav- 
ing waves,  was  seen  or  heard  save  what  might  raise  the  soul  to 
heaven  and  the  heart  to  God. 

In  concluding  this  portion  of  our  subject,  we  will  merely 
refer  to  the  fact  that  neither  the  Celts  of  Gaul  or  Britain,  nor 
those  of  Ireland,  ever  opposed  an  organized  fleet  to  the  numer- 
ous hostile  naval  armaments  by  which  their  country  was  in- 
vaded. Wlien  the  Roman  fleet,  commanded  by  Caesar,  landed 
in  Great  Britain,  when  the  innumerable  Danish  expeditions  at- 
tacked Ireland,  whenever  the  Anglo-Normans  arrived  in  the 
island  during  the  four  hundred  years  of  the  colony  of  the  Pale, 
we  never  hear  of  a  Celtic  fleet  opposed  to  the  invaders.  Italian, 
Spanish,  and  French  fleets  came  in  oftentimes  to  the  help  of  the 
Irish  ;  yet  never  do  we  read  that  the  island  had  a  single  vessel 
to  join  the  friendly  expedition.  We  may  safely  conclude,  then, 
that  the  race  has  never  felt  any  inclination  for  sending  large  ex- 
peditions to  sea,  whether  for  extensive  trading,  or  for  political 
and  warlike  purposes.  They  have  always  used  the  vessels  of 
other  nations,  and  it  is  no  surprise,  therefore,  to  find  them  now 
crowding  English  ships  in  their  migrations  to  colonize  other 
countries.    It  is  one  of  the  propensities  of  the  race. 

A  third  feature  of  Celtic  character  and  mind  now  attracts 
our  attention,  namely,  a  peculiar  literature,  art,  music,  and 
poetry,  wherein  their  very  soul  is  portrayed,  and  which  belongs 
exclusively  to  them.  Some  very  interesting  considerations  will 
naturally  flow  from  this  short  investigation.  It  is  the  study  of 
the  constitution  of  the  Celtic  mind. 

In  Celtic  countries  literature  was  the  perfect  expression  of 
the  social  state  of  the  people.  Literature  must  naturally  be  so 
everywhere,  but  it  was  most  emphatically  so  among  the  Celts. 
With  them  it  became  a  state  institution,  totally  unknown  to 
other  nations.  Literature  and  art  sprang  naturally  from  the 
clan  system,  and  consequently  adopted  a  form  not  to  be  found 
elsewhere.  Being,  moreover,  of  an  entirely  traditional  cast, 
those  pursuits  imparted  to  their  minds  a  steady,  conservative, 
traditional  spirit,  which  has  resulted  in  the  happiest  conse- 
quences for  the  race,  preserving  it  from  theoretical  vagaries,  and 
holding  it  aloof,  even  in  our  days,  from  the  aberrations  which 
all  men  now  deplore  in  other  European  nations,  and  whose 
effects  we  behold  in  the  anarchy  of  thought.    This  last  consid- 


10 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


eration  adds  to  this  portion  of  our  subject  a  peculiar  and  ab- 
sorbing interest. 

The  knowledge  which  Julius  Caesar  possessed  of  the  Druids 
and  of  their  literary  system  was  very  incomplete ;  yet  he  pre- 
sents to  his  readers  a  truly  grand  spectacle,  when  he  speaks  of 
their  numerous  schools,  frequented  by  an  immense  number  of 
the  youths  of  the  country,  so  different  from  those  of  Rome,  in 
which  his  own  mind  had  been  trained — "  Ad  has  magnus  adoles- 
centium  numerus  disciplinas  causa  concurrit:"  when  he  men- 
tions the  political  and  civil  subjects  submitted  to  the  judgment 
of  literary  men — "  de  omnibus  controversiis  publicis  privatisque 
constituunt.  .  .  .  Si  de  hereditate,  si  de  finibus  controversia  est, 
iidem  decernunt : "  when  he  states  the  length  of  their  studies — 
"  annos  nonnulli  vicenos  in  disciplina  permanent : "  when  he 
finally  draws  a  short  sketch  of  their  course  of  instruction — "  mul- 
ta  de  sideribus  atque  eorum  motu,  de  mundi  ac  terrarum  magni- 
tudine,  ....  disputant  juventutique  tradunt." 

But,  unfortunately,  the  great  author  of  the  "  Commentaries  " 
had  not  sufficiently  studied  the  social  state  of  the  Celts  in  Gaul 
and  Britain  ;  he  never  mentions  the  clan  institution,  even  when 
he  speaks  of  the  feuds — factiones — which  invariably  split  their 
septs — civitates — into  hostile  parties.  In  his  eleventh  chapter, 
when  describing  the  contentions  which  were  constantly  rile  in 
the  cities,  villages,  even  single  houses,  when  remarking  the  con- 
tinual shifting  of  the  supreme  authority  from  the  Edui  to  the 
Sequani,  and  reciprocally,  he  seems  to  be  giving  in  a  few  phrase8 
the  long  history  of  the  Irish  Celts  ;  yet  he  does  not  appear  to 
be  aware  of  the  cause  of  tins  universal  agitation,  namely,  the 
clan  system,  of  which  he  does  not  say  a  single  world.  How 
could  he  have  perceived  the  effect  of  that  system  on  their  litera- 
ture and  art  ? 

To  understand  it  at  once  it  suffices  to  describe  in  a  few  words 
the  various  branches  of  studies  pursued  by  their  learned  men ; 
and,  as  we  are  best  acquainted  with  that  portion  of  the  subject 
which  concerns  Ireland,  we  will  confine  ourselves  to  it.  There 
is  no  doubt  the  other  agglomerations  of  Celtic  tribes,  the  Gauls 
chiefly,  enjoyed  institutions  very  similar,  if  not  perfectly  alike. 

The  highest  generic  name  for  a  learned  man  or  doctor  was 
"  ollamh/'  These  ollamhs  formed  a  kind  of  order  in  the  race, 
and  the  privileges  bestowed  on  them  were  most  extensive. 
"  Each  one  of  them  was  allowed  a  standing  income  of  twenty- 
one  cows  and  their  grasses,"  in  the  chieftain's  territory,  besides 
ample  refections  for  himself  and  his  attendants,  to  the  number 
of  twenty-four,  including  his  subordinate  tutors,  his  advanced 
pupils,  and  his  retinue  of  servants.  He  was  entitled  to  have 
two  hounds  and  six  horses,  .  .  .  and  the  privilege  of  conferring 
a  temporary  sanctuary  from  injury  or  arrest  by  carrying  his 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


11 


wand,  or  having  it  carried  around  or  over  the  person  or  place  to 
be  protected.  His  wife  also  enjoyed  certain  other  valuable  privi- 
leges.— (Prof.  E.  Curry,  Lecture  I.) 

But  to  reach  that  degree  he  was  to  prove  for  himself,  purity 
K  f  learning,  purity  of  mouth  (from  satire),  purity  of  hand  (from 
bloodshed),  purity  of  union  (in  marriage),  purity  of  honesty 
(from  theft),  and  purity  of  body  (having  but  one  wife). 

With  the  Celts,  therefore,  learning  constituted  a  kind  of 
priesthood.  These  were  his  moral  qualifications.  His  scientific 
attainments  require  a  little  longer  consideration,  as  they  form 
the  chief  object  we  have  in  view. 

They  may  at  the  outset  be  stated  in  a  few  words.  The 
ollamh  was  "  a  man  who  had  arrived  at  the  highest  degree  of 
historical  learning,  and  of  general  literary  attainments.  He 
should  be  an  adept  in  royal  synchronisms,  should  know  the 
boundaries  of  all  the  provinces  and  chieftaincies,  and  should  be 
able  to  trace  the  genealogies  of  all  the  tribes  of  Erin  up  to  the 
first  man. — (Prof.  Curry,  Lecture  X.) 

Caesar  had  already  told  us  of  the  Druids,  "  Si  de  hereditate, 
si  de  finibus  controversia  est  iidem  decernunt."  In  this  passage 
he  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  a  system  which  he  had  not  studied 
sufficiently  to  embrace  in  its  entirety. 

The  qualifications  of  an  ollamh  which  we  have  just  enumer- 
ated, that  is  to  say,  of  the  highest  doctor  in  Celtic  countries, 
already  prove  how  their  literature  grew  out  of  the  clan  system. 

The  clan  system,  of  which  we  shall  subsequently  speak  more 
at  length,  rested  entirely  on  history,  genealogy,  and  topography. 
The  authority  and  rights  of  the  monarch  of  the  whole  country, 
of  the  so-called  kings  of  the  various  provinces,  of  the  other  chief- 
tains in  their  several  degrees,  finally,  of  all  the  individuals  who 
composed  the  nation  connected  by  blood  with  the  chieftains  and 
kings,  depended  entirely  on  their  various  genealogies,  out  of 
which  grew  a  complete  system  of  general  and  personal  history. 
The  conflicting  rights  01  the  septs  demanded  .also  a  thorough 
TEnowledge  otjiopngr^p^y  thp  n-Hjiiairnpn*  of  their  difficulties. 
Hence  the  importance  to  the  whole  nation  of  accuracy  in  these 
matters,  and  of  a  competent  authority  to  decide  on  all  such 
questions. 

But  in  Celtic  countries,  more  than  in  all  others,  topography 
was  connected  with  general  history,  as  each  river  or  lake,  moun- 
tain or  hill,  tower  or  hamlet,  had  received  a  name  from  some 
historical  fact  recorded  in  the  public  annals  ;  so  that  even  now  the 
geographical  etymologies  frequently  throw  a  sudden  and  decisive 
light  on  disputed  points  of  ancient  history.  So  far,  this  cannot 
be  called  a  literature;  it  might  be  classed  under  the  name  of 
statistics,  or  antiquarian  lore ;  and  if  their  history  consisted 
merely  of  what  is  contained  in  the  old  annals  of  the  race,  it 


12 


TEE  CELTIC  RACE. 


would  be  presumptuous  to  make  a  particular  allusion  to  their 
literature,  and  make  it  one  of  the  chief  characteristics  of  the 
race.  The  annals,  in  fact,  were  mere  chronological  and  syn- 
chronic tables  of  previous  events. 

But  an  immense  number  of  books  were  written  by  many  of 
their  authors  on  each  particular  event  interesting  to  each  Celtic 
tribe :  and  even  now  many  of  those  special  facts  recorded  in 
these  books  owe  their  origin  to  some  assertion  or  hint  given  in 
the  annals.  There  is  no  doubt  that  long  ago  their  learned  men 
were  fully  acquainted  with  all  the  points  of  reference  which 
escape  the  modern  antiquarian.  History  for  them,  therefore, 
was  very  different  from  what  the  Greeks  and  Romans  have  made 
it  in  the  models  they  left  us,  which  we  have  copied  or  imitated. 

It  is  only  in  their  detached  "  historical  tales  "  that  they  dis- 
play any  skill  in  description  or  narration,  any  remarkable  pict* 
ures  of  character,  manners,  and  local  traditions ;  and  it  seems 
that  in  many  points  they  show  themselves  masters  of  this  beauti- 
ful art. 

Thus  they  had  stories  of  battles,  of  voyages,  of  invasions,  of 
destructions,  of  slaughters,  of  sieges,  of  tragedies  and  deaths,  of 
courtships,  of  military  expeditions ;  and  all  this  strictly  histori- 
cal. For  we  do  not  here  speak  of  their  "  imaginative  tales," 
which  give  still  freer  scope  to  fancy ;  such  as  the  Fenian  and 
Ossianic  poems,  which  are  also  founded  on  facts,  but  can  no  more 
claim  the  title  of  history  than  the  novels  of  Scott  or  Cooper. 

The  number  of  those  books  was  so  great  that  the  authentic 
list  of  them  far  surpasses  in  length  what  has  been  preserved  of 
the  old  Greek  and  Latin  writers.  It  is  true  that  they  have  all 
been  saved  and  transmitted  to  us  by  Christian  Irishmen  of  the 
centuries  intervening  between  the  sixth  and  sixteenth ;  but  it  is 
also  perfectly  true  that  whatever  was  handed  down  to  us  by  Irish 
monks  and  friars  came  to  them  from  the  genuine  source,  the 
primitive  authors,  as  our  own  monks  of  the  West  have  preserved 
to  us  all  we  know  of  Greek  and  Latin  authors. 

So  that  the  question  so  long  decided  in  the  negative,  whether 
the  Irish  knew  handwriting  prior  to  the  Christian  era  and  the 
coming  of  St.  Patrick,  is  no  longer  a  question,  now  that  so  much 
is  known  of  their  early  literature.  St.  Patrick  and  his  brother 
monks  brought  with  them  the  Roman  characters  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  numerous  Christian  writers  who  had  preceded  him  ;  but 
he  could  not  teach  them  what  had  happened  in  the  country  be- 
fore his  time,  events  which  form  the  subject-matter  of  their  an- 
nals, historical  and  imaginative  tales  and  poems.  For  the  Chris- 
tian authors  of  Ireland  subsequently  to  transmit  those  facts  to 
ns,  they  must  evidently  have  copied  them  from  older  books, 
which  have  since  perished. 

Prof.  E.  Curry  thinks  that  the  Ogham  characters,  so  often 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


13 


mentioned  in  the  most  ancient  Irish  books,  were  used  in  Erin 
long  before  the  introduction  of  Christianity  there.  And  he 
strengthens  his  opinion  by  proofs  which  it  is  difficult  to  con- 
tradict. Those  characters  are  even  now  to  be  seen  in  some  of 
the  oldest  books  which  have  been  preserved,  as  well  as  on  many- 
stone  monuments,  the  remote  antiquity  of  which  cannot  be  de- 
nied. One  well-authenticated  fact  suffices,  however,  to  set  the 
question  at  rest :  "  It  is  quite  certain,"  says  E.  Curry,  "  that  the 
Irish  Druids  and  poets  had  written  books  before  the  coming  of 
St.  Patrick  in  432  ;  since  we  find  that  very  statement  in  the 
ancient  Gaelic  Tripartite  life  of  the  Saint,  as  well  as  in  the 
"  Annotations  of  Tirechan  "  preserved  in  the  Book  of  Armagh, 
which  were  taken  by  him  (Tirechan)  from  the  lips  and  books  of 
his  tutor,  St.  Mochta,  who  was  the  pupil  and  disciple  of  St. 
Patrick  himself." 

What  Caesar,  then,  states  of  the  Druids,  that  they  committed 
every  thing  to  memory  and  used  no  books,  is  not  strictly  true. 
It  must  have  been  true  only  with  regard  to  their  mode  of  teach- 
ing, in  that  they  gave  no  books  to  their  pupils,  but  confined 
themselves  to  oral  instruction. 

The  order  of  Ollamh  comprised  various  sub-orders  of  learned 
men.  And  the  first  of  these  deserving  our  attention  is  the  class 
of  "  Seanchaidhe,"  pronounced  Shanachy.  The  ollamh  seems  to 
have  been  the  historian  of  the  monarch  of  the  whole  country ; 
the  shanachy  had  the  care  of  provincial  records.  Each  chief- 
tain, in  fact,  down  to  the  humblest,  had  an  officer  of  this  descrip- 
tion, who  enjoyed  privileges  inferior  only  to  those  of  the  ollamh, 
and  partook  of  emoluments  graduated  according  to  his  useful- 
ness in  the  state  ;  so  that  we  can  already  obtain  some  idea  of  the 
honor  and  respect  paid  to  the  national  literature  and  traditions 
in  the  person  of  those  who  were  looked  upon  in  ancient  times 
as  their  guardians  from  age  to  age. 

The  shanachies  were  also  bound  to  prove  for  themselves  the 
moral  qualifications  of  the  ollamhs.1 

A  shanachy  of  any  degree,  who  did  not  preserve  these 
a  purities,"  lost  half  his  income  and  dignity,  according  to  law. 
and  was  subject  to  heaVy  penalties  besides. 

According  to  McFirbis,  in  his  book  of  genealogies,  "  the  histo- 
rians were  so  anxious  and  ardent  to  preserve  the  history  of  Erin, 
that  the  description  they  have  left  us  of  the  nobleness  and  digni- 
fied manners  of  the  people,  should  not  be  wondered  at,  since 

1  "  Purity  of  hand,  bright  without  wounding, 

Purity  of  mouth,  without  poisonous  satire, 

Purity  of  learning,  without  reproach, 

Purity  of  husbandship,  in  marriage." 
Many  of  these  details  and  the  following  are  chiefly  derived  from  Prof.  E.  Currj 
—{Early  Irish  Manuscripts.) 


14 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


they  did  not  refrain  from  writing  even  of  the  undignified  arti- 
sans, and  of  the  professors  of  the  healing  and  building  arts  of 
ancient  times — as  shall  be  shown  below,  to  prove  the  fidelity  of 
the  historians,  and  the  errors  of  those  who  make  such  assertions, 
as,  for  instance,  that  there  were  no  stone  buildings  in  Erin  be 
lore  the  coming  of  the  Danes  and  Anglo-Normans. 

"  Thus  saith  an  ancient  authority  :  '  The  first  doctor,  the  first 
builder,  and  the  first  fisherman,  that  were  ever  in  Erin  were-  - 

Capa,  for  the  healing  of  the  sick, 
In  his  time  was  all-powerful ; 
And  Luasad,  the  cunning  builder, 
And  Laighne,  the  fisherman.' 99 

So  speaks  McFirbis  in  his  quaint  and  picturesque  style. 

The  literature  of  the  Celts  was,  therefore,  impressed  with  the 
character  of  realistic  universality,  which  has  been  the  great  boast 
of  the  romantic  school.  It  did  not  concern  itself  merely  with 
the  great  and  powerful,  but  comprised  all  classes  of  people,  and 
tried  to  elevate  what  is  of  itself  undignified  and  common  in  hu. 
man  society.  This  is  no  doubt  the  meaning  of  the  quotation 
just  cited. 

Among  the  Celts,  then,  each  clan  had  his  historian  to  record 
the  most  minute  details  of  every-day  history,  as  well  as  every 
fact  of  importance  to  the  whole  clan,  and  even  to  the  nation  at 
large;  and  thus  we  may  see  how  literature  with  them  grew 
naturally  out  of  their  social  system.  The  same  may  not  appear 
to  hold  good  at  first  sight  with  the  other  classes  of  literary  men  ; 
yet  it  would  be  easy  to  discover  the  link  connecting  them  all, 
and  which  was  always  traditional  or  matter-of-fact,  if  we  may 
use  that  expression. 

The  next  sub-order  was  that  of  File,  which  is  generally  trans- 
lated poet,  but  its  meaning  also  involves  the  idea  of  philosophy 
or  wisdom  added  to  that  of  poetry. 

The  File  among  the  Celts  was,  after  all,  only  an  historian 
writing  in  verse  ;  for  all  their  poetry  resolved  itself  into  annals, 
"  poetic  narratives  "  of  great  events,  or  finally  "  ballads." 

It  is  well  known  that  among  all  nations  poetry  has  preceded 
prose  ;  and  the  first  writers  that  appeared  anywhere  always  wrote 
in  verse.  It  seems,  therefore,  that  in  Celtic  tribes  the  order  of 
File  was  anterior  in  point  of  time  to  that  of  Shanachy,  and  that 
both  must  have  sprung  naturally  from  the  same  social  system. 
Hence  the  monarch  of  the  whole  nation  had  his  poets,  as  also 
the  provincial  kings  and  every  minor  chieftain. 

In  course  of  time  their  number  increased  to  such  an  extent 
in  Ireland,  that  at  last  they  became  a  nuisance  to  be  abated. 

"  It  is  said  that  in  the  days  of  Connor  MoNassa — several  cen- 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


15 


turies  before  Christ — there  met  once  1,200  poets  in  one  com- 
pany ;  another  time  1,000,  and  another  7 00,  namely,  in  the 
days  of  Aedh  McAinmire  and  Columcille,  in  the  sixth  century 
after  our  Saviour.  And  between  these  periods  Erin  always 
thought  that  she  had  more  of  learned  men  than  she  wanted  ;  so 
that  from  their  numbers  and  the  tax  their  support  imposed  upon 
the  public,  it  was  attempted  to  banish  them  out  of  Erin  on  three 
different  occasions  ;  but  they  were  detained  by  the  Ultonians  for 
hospitality's  sake.  This  is  evident  from  the  Amhra  Columcille 
(panegyric  of  St.  Columba).  He  was  the  last  that  kept  them  in 
Ireland,  and  distributed  a  poet  to  every  territory,  and  a  poet  to 
every  king,  in  order  to  lighten  the  burden  of  the  people  in  gen- 
eral. So  that  there  were  people  in  their  following,  contemporary 
with  every  generation  to  preserve  the  history  and  events  of  the 
country  at  this  time.  Not  these  alone,  but  the  kings,  and  saints, 
and  churches  of  Erin  preserved  their  history  in  like  manner." 

From  this  curious  passage  of  McFirbis,  it  is  clear  that  the 
Celtic  poets  proposed  to  themselves  the  same  object  as  the  histo- 
rians did  ;  only  that  they  wrote  in  verse,  and  no  doubt  allowed 
themselves  more  freedom  of  fancy,  without  altering  the  facts 
which  were  to  them  of  paramount  importance. 

McFirbis,  in  the  previous  passage,  gives  us  a  succinct  account 
of  the  action  of  Columbkill  in  regard  to  the  poets  or  bards  of  his 
time.  But  we  know  many  other  interesting  facts  connected 
with  this  event,  which  must  be  considered  as  one  of  the  most 
important  in  Ireland  during  the  sixth  century.  The  order 
of  poets  or  bards  was  a  social  and  political  institution,  reach- 
ing back  in  point  of  time  to  the  birth  of  the  nation,  enjoying 
extensive  privileges,  and  without  which  Celtic  life  would  have 
been  deprived  of  its  warmth  and  buoyancy.  Yet  Aed,  the 
monarch  of  all  Ireland,  was  inclined  to  abolish  the  whole  order, 
and  banish,  or  even  outlaw,  all  its  members.  Being  unable  to  do 
it  of  his  own  authority,  he  thought  of  having  the  measure  car- 
ried in  the  assembly  of  Drumceit,  convened  for  the  chief  pur- 
pose of  settling  peacefully  the  relations  of  Ireland  with  the  JDal- 
riadan  colony  established  in  Western  Scotland  a  hundred  years 
before.  Columba  came  from  Iona  in  behalf  of  Aidan,  whom  he 
had  crowned  a  short  time  previously  as  King  of  Albania  or 
Scotland.  It  seems  that  the  bards  or  poets  were  accused  of  in- 
solence, rapacity,  and  of  selling  their  services  to  princes  and 
nobles,  instead  of  calling  them  to  account  for  their  misdeeds. 

Columba  openly  undertook  their  defence  in  the  general  as- 
sembly of  the  nation.  Himself  a  poet,  he  loved  their  art,  and 
could  not  consent  to  see  his  native  country  deprived  of  it.  Such 
a  deprivation  in  his  eyes  would  almost  have  seemed  a  sacrilege. 

"  He  represented,"  says  Montalembert,  "  that  care  must  be 
taken  not  to  pull  up  the  good  corn  with  the  tares,  that  the  gen- 


16 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


eral  exile  of  the  poets  would  be  the  death  of  a  venerable  an- 
tiquity, and  of  that  poetry  so  dear  to  the  country,  and  so  useful 
to  those  who  knew  how  to  employ  it.  The  king  and  assembly 
yielded  at  length,  under  condition  that  the  number  should  be 
limited,  and  their  profession  laid  under  certain  rules." 

Dalian  Fergall,  the  chief  of  the  corporation,  composed  his 
"  Amhra,"  or  Praise  of  Colurnbkill,  as  a  mark  of  gratitude  from 
the  whole  order.  That  the  works  of  Celtic  poets  possessed  real 
literary  merit,  we  have  the  authority  of  Spenser  for  believing. 
The  author  of  the  "  Faerie  Queene  "  was  not  the  friend  of  the 
Irish,  whom  he  assisted  in  plundering  and  destroying  under 
Elizabeth.  He  could  only  judge  of  their  books  from  English 
translations,  not  being  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  language 
to  understand  its  niceties.  Yet  he  had  to  acknowledge  that  their 
poems  "  savoured  of  sweet  wit  and  good  invention,  but  skilled  not 
of  the  goodly  ornaments  of  poetry ;  yet  were  they  sprinkled 
with  some  pretty  flowers  of  their  natural  device,  whicn  gave  good 
grace  and  comeliness  to  them." 

He  objected,  it  is  true,  to  the  patriotism  of  their  verse,  and 
pretended  that  they  "  seldom  choose  the  doings  of  good  men  for 
the  argument  of  their  poems,"  and  became  "  dangerous  and  des- 
perate in  disobedience  and  rebellious  daring."  But  this  accusa- 
tion is  high  praise  in  our  eyes,  as  showing  that  the  Irish  bards 
of  Spenser's  time  praised  and  glorified  those  who  proved  most 
courageous  in  resisting  English  invasion,  and  stood  firmly  on 
the  side  of  their  race  against  the  power  of  a  great  queen. 

A  poet,  it  seems,  required  twelve  years  of  study  to  be  master 
of  his  art.  One-third  of  that  time  was  devoted  to  practising  the 
"  Teinim  Laegha,"  by  which  he  obtained  the  power  of  under- 
standing every  thing  that  it  was  proper  for  him  to  speak  of  or  to 
say.  The  next  third  was  employed  in  learning  the  "  Imas  Foros- 
nadh,"  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  communicate  thoroughly  his 
knowledge  to  other  pupils.  Finally,  the  last  three  years  were 
occupied  in  a  Dichedal,"  or  improvisation,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
speak  in  verse  on  all  subjects  of  his  study  at  a  moment's  notice. 

There  were,  it  appears,  seven  kinds  of  verse ;  and  the  poet 
was  bound  to  possess  a  critical  knowledge  of  them,  so  as  to  be  a 
judge  of  his  art,  and  to  pronounce  on  the  compositions  submitted 
to  him. 

If  called  upon  by  any  king  or  chieftain,  he  was  required  to 
relate  instantly,  seven  times  fifty  stories,  namely,  five  times  fifty 
prime  stories,  and  twice  fifty  secondary  stories. 

The  prime  stories  were  destructions  and  preyings,  courtships, 
battles,  navigations,  tragedies  or  deaths,  expeditions,  elopements, 
and  conflagrations. 

All  those  literary  compositions  were  historic  tales ;  and  they 
were  not  composed  for  mere  amusement,  but  possessed  in  the 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


17 


eyes  of  learned  men  a  real  authority  in  point  of  fact.  If  fancy 
was  permitted  to  adorn  them,  the  facts  themselves  were  to 
remain  unaltered  with  their  chief  circumstances.  Hence  the 
writers  of  the  various  annals  of  Ireland  do  not  scruple  to  quote 
many  poems  or  other  tales  as  authority  for  the  facts  of  history 
which  they  relate. 

And  such  also  was  heroic  poetry  among  the  Greeks.  The 
Hellenic  philosophers,  historians,  and  geographers  of  later  times 
always  quoted  Homer  and  Hesiod  as  authorities  for  the  facts  they 
related  in  their  scientific  works.  The  whole  first  book  of  the 
geography  of  Strabo,  one  of  the  most  statistical  and  positive 
works  of  antiquity,  has  for  its  object  the  vindication  of  the 
geography  of  Homer,  whom  Strabo  seems  to  have  considered  as 
a  reliable  authority  on  almost  every  possible  subject. 

Our  limits  forbid  us  to  speak  more  in  detail  of  Celtic  histo- 
rians and  poets.  We  have  said  enough  to  show  that  both  had 
important  state  duties  to  perform  in  the  social  system  of  the 
country,  and,  while  keeping  within  due  bounds,  they  were  es- 
teemed by  all  as  men  of  great  weight  and  use  to  the  nation. 
Besides  the  field  of  genealogy  and  history  allotted  to  them  to  cul- 
tivate, their  very  office  tended  to  promote  the  love  of  virtue,  and 
to  check  immorality  and  vice.  They  were  careful  to  watch  over 
the  acts  and  inclinations  of  their  princes  and  chieftains,  seldom 
failing  to  brand  them  with  infamy  if  guilty  of  crimes,  or  crown 
them  with  honor  when  they  had  deserved  well  of  the  nation.  In 
ancient  Egypt  the  priests  judged  the  kings  after  their  demise ; 
in  Celtic  countries  they  dared  to  tell  them  the  truth  during  their 
lifetime.  And  this  exercised  a  most  salutary  effect  on  the  peo- 
ple ;  for  perhaps  never  in  any  other  country  did  the  admiration 
for  learning,  elevation  of  feeling,  and  ardent  love  of  justice  and 
right,  prevail  as  in  Ireland,  at  least  while  enjoying  its  native  in- 
stitutions and  government. 

From  many  of  the  previous  details,  the  reader  will  easily  see 
that  the  literature  of  the  Celts  presented  features  peculiar  to  their 
race,  and  which  supposed  a  mental  constitution  seldom  found 
among  others.  If,  in  general,  the  world  of  letters  gives  expres- 
sion in  some  degree  to  social  wants  and  habits,  among  the  Celts 
this  expression  was  complete,  and  argued  a  peculiar  bent  of  mind 
given  entirely  to  traditional  lore,  and  never  to  philosophical 
speculations  and  subtlety.  We  see  in  it  two  elements  remark- 
able for  their  distinctness.  First,  an  extraordinary  fondness  for 
facts  and  traditions,  growing  out  of  the  patriarchal  origin  of  so- 
ciety among  them  ;  and  from  this  fondness  their  mind  received 
a  particular  tendency  which  was  averse  to  theories  and  Utopias. 
All  things  resolved  themselves  into  facts,  and  they  seldom  wan- 
dered away  into  the  fields  of  conjectural  conclusions.  Hence 
their  extraordinary  adaptation  to  the  truths  of  the  Christian  re- 


18 


THE  CELTIC  EACE. 


ligion,  whose  dogmas  are  all  supernatural  facts,  at  once  human 
and  divine.  Hence  have  they  ever  been  kept  free  from  that 
strange  mental  activity  of  other  European  races,  which  has  led 
them  into  doubt,  unbelief,  skepticism,  until,  in  our  days,  there 
seem  to  be  no  longer  any  fixed  principles  as  a  substratum  for 
religious  and  social  doctrines. 

Secondly,  we  see  in  the  Celtic  race  a  rare  and  unique  outburst 
of  fancy,  so  well  expressed  in  the  "  Senchus  Mor"  their  great  law 
compilation,  wherein  it  is  related,  that  when  St.  Patrick  had  com- 
pleted the  digest  of  the  laws  of  the  Gael  in  Ireland,  Dubtach, 
who  was  a  bard  as  well  as  a  brehon,  "  put  a  thread  of  poetry 
round  it."  Poetry  everywhere,  even  in  a  law-book;  poetry 
inseparable  from  their  thoughts,  their  speech,  their  every-day  ac- 
tions ;  poetry  became  for  them  a  reality,  an  indispensable  neces- 
sity of  life.  This  feature  is  also  certainly  characteristic  of  the 
Celtic  nature. 

Hence  their  literature  was  inseparable  from  art ;  and  music 
and  design  gushed  naturally  from  the  deepest  springs  of  their 
souls. 

Music  has  always  been  the  handmaid  of  Poetry ;  and  in  our 
modern  languages,  even,  which  are  so  artificial  and  removed 
from  primitive  enthusiasm  and  naturalness,  no  composer  of 
opera  would  consent  to  adapt  his  inspirations  to  a  prose  libretto* 
It  was  far  more  so  in  primitive  times  ;  and  it  may  be  said  that  in 
those  days  poetry  was  never  composed  unless  to  be  sung  or 
played  on  instruments.  But  what  has  never  been  seen  elsewhere, 
what  Plato  dreamed,  without  ever  hoping  to  see  realized,  music 
in  Celtic  countries  became  really  a  state  institution,  and  singers 
and  harpers  were  necessary  officers  of  princes  and  kings. 

That  all  Celtic  tribes  were  fond  of  it  and  cultivated  it  thor- 
oughly we  have  the  assertion  of  all  ancient  writers  who  spoke  of 
them.  According  to  Strabo,  the  third  order  of  Druids  was  com- 
posed of  those  whom  he  calls  Umnetai  (vfAVTjrai).  What  were 
their  instruments  is  not  mentioned;  and  we  can  now  form  no 
opinion  of  their  former  musical  taste  from  the  rude  melodies  of 
the  Armoricans,  Welsh,  and  Scotch. 

From  time  immemorial  the  Irish  Celts  possessed  the  harp. 
Some  authors  have  denied  this  ;  and  from  the  fact  that  the  harp 
was  unknown  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  that  the  Gauls 
of  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar  do  not  seem  to  have  been  ac- 
quainted with  it,  they  conclude  that  it  was  not  purely  native  to 
any  of  the  British  islands. 

"  But  modern  researches  have  proved  that  it  was  certainly  used  in 
Erin  under  the  first  successors  of  Ugaine  Mor,  who  was  monarch 
— Ard-Righ — about  the  year  633  before  Christ,  according  to  the 
annals  of  the  Four  Masters.  The  story  of  Labhraid,  which  seems 
perfectly  authentic,  turns  altogether  on  the  perfection  with  which 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


19 


Craftine  played  on  the  harp.  From  that  time,  at  least,  the 
instrument  became  among  the  Celts  of  Ireland  a  perpetual  source 
of  melody. 

To  judge  of  their  proficiency  in  its  use,  it  is  enough  to  know- 
to  what  degree  of  perfection  they  had  raised  it.  Mr.  Beauford, 
in  his  ingenious  and  learned  treatise  on  the  music  of  Ireland,  as 
cultivated  by  its  bards,  creates  genuine  astonishment  by  the  dis- 
coveries into  which  his  researches  have  led  him. 

The  extraordinary  attention  which  they  paid  to  expression 
and  effect  brought  about  successive  improvements  in  the  harp, 
which  at  last  made  it  far  superior  to  the  Grecian  lyre.  To  make 
it  capable  of  supporting  the  human  voice  in  their  symphonies, 
they  filled  up  the  intervals  of  the  fifths  and  thirds  in  each  scale, 
and  increased  the  number  of  strings  from  eighteen  to  twenty- 
eight,  retaining  all  the  original  chromatic  tones,  but  reducing  the 
capacity  of  the  instrument ;  for,  instead  of  commencing  in  the 
lower  E  in  the  bass,  it  commenced  in  C,  a  sixth  above,  and  ter- 
minated in  G  in  the  octave  below  ;  and,  in  consequence,  the  in- 
strument became  much  more  melodious  and  capable  of  accom- 
panying the  human  voice.  Malachi  O'Morgair,  Archbishop  of 
Armagh,  introduced  other  improvements  in  it  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury. Finally,  in  later  times,  its  capacity  was  increased  fronj 
twenty-eight  strings  to  thirty-three,  in  which  state  it  still  re* 
mains. 

As  long  as  the  nation  retained  its  autonomy,  the  harp  was  a 
universal  instrument  among  the  inhabitants  of  Erin.  It  was 
found  in  every  house ;  it  was  heard  wherever  you  met  a  few  peo- 
ple gathered  together.  Studied  so  universally,  so  completely  and 
perfectly,  it  gave  Irish  music  in  the  middle  ages  a  superiority 
over  that  of  all  other  nations.  It  is  Cambrensis  who  remarks 
that  "  the  attention  of  these  people  to  musical  instruments  is 
worthy  of  praise,  in  which  their  skill  is,  beyond  comparison,  su- 
perior to  any  other  people  ;  for  in  these  the  modulation  is  not 
slow  and  solemn,  as  in  the  instruments  of  Britain,  but  the 
sounds  are  rapid  and  precipitate,  yet  sweet  and  pleasing.  It  is 
extraordinary,  in  such  rapidity  of  the  fingers,  how  the  musical  pro- 
portions are  preserved,  and  the  art  everywhere  inherent  among 
their  complicated  modulations,  and  the  multitude  of  intricate 
notes  so  sweetly  swift,  so  irregular  in  their  composition,  so  dis- 
orderly in  their  concords,  yet  returning  to  unison  and  complet- 
ing the  melody." 

Giraldus  could  not  express  himself  better,  never  before  having 
heard  any  other  music  than  that  of  the  Anglo-Xormans ;  but  it  is 
clear,  from  the  foregoing  passage,  that  Irish  art  surpassed  all  his 
conceptions. 

The  universality  of  song  among  the  Irish  Celts  grew  out  of 
their  nature,  and  in  time  brought  out  all  the  refinements  of  art. 


20 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


Long  before  Cambrensis's  time  the  whole  island  resonnded  with 
music  and  mirth,  and  the  king-archbishop,  Cormac  McCullinan, 
could  not  better  express  his  gratitude  to  his  Thomond  subjects 
than  by  exclaiming — 

"  May  our  truest  fidelity  ever  be  given 
To  the  brave  and  generous  clansmen  of  Tal ; 
And  forever  royalty  rest  with  their  tribe, 
And  virtue  and  valor,  and  music  and  song ! " 

Long  before  Cormac,  we  find  the  same  mirthful  glee  in  the 
Celtic  character  expressed  by  a  beautiful  and  well-known  pas- 
sage in  the  life  of  St.  Bridget :  Being  yet  an  unknown  girl,  she 
entered,  by  chance,  the  dwelling  of  some  provincial  king,  who 
was  at  the  time  absent,  and,  getting  hold  of  a  harp,  her  fingers 
ran  over  the  chords,  and  her  voice  rose  in  song  and  glee,  and  the 
whole  family  of  the  royal  children,  excited  by  the  joyful  har- 
mony, surrounded  her,  immediately  grew  familiar  with  her,  and 
treated  her  as  an  elder  sister  whom  they  might  have  known  all 
their  life ;  so  that  the  king,  coming  back,  found  all  his  house  in 
an  uproar,  filled  as  it  was  with  music  and  mirth. 

Thus  the  whole  island  remained  during  long  ages.  Never  in 
the  whole  history  of  man  has  the  same  been  the  case  with  any 
other  nation.  Plato,  no  doubt,  in  his  dream  of  a  republic,  had 
something  of  the  kind  in  his  mind,  when  he  wished  to  constitute 
harmony  as  a  social  and  political  institution.  But  he  little 
thought  that,  when  he  thus  dreamed  and  wrote,  or  very  shortly 
after,  the  very  object  of  his  speculation  was  already,  or  was  soon 
to  be,  in  actual  existence  in  the  most  western  isle  of  Europe. 

Before  Columba's  time  even  the  Church  had  become  recon- 
ciled to  the  bards  and  harpers ;  and,  according  to  a  beautiful 
legend,  Patrick  himself  had  allowed  Oisin,  or  Ossian,  and  his 
followers,  to  sing  the  praises  of  ancient  heroes.  But  Columbkill 
completed  the  reconciliation  of  the  religious  spirit  with  the 
bardic  influence.  Music  and  poetry  were  thenceforth  identified 
with  ecclesiastical  life.  Monks  and  grave  bishops  played  on  the 
harp  in  the  churches,  and  it  is  said  that  this  strange  spectacle 
surprised  the  first  Norman  invaders  of  Ireland.  To  use  the 
words  of  Montalembert,  so  well  adapted  to  our  subject :  "  Irish 
poetry,  which  was  in  the  days  of  Patrick  and  Columba  so  power- 
ful and  so  popular,  has  long  undergone,  in  the  country  of  Ossian, 
the  same  fate  as  the  religion  of  which  these  great  saints  were  the 
apostles.  Hooted,  like  it,  in  the  heart  of  a  conquered  people, 
and  like  it  proscribed  and  persecuted  with  an  unwearying  vehe- 
mence, it  has  come  ever  forth  anew  from  the  bloody  furrow  in 
which  it  was  supposed  to  be  buried.  The  bards  became  the 
most  powerful  allies  of  patriotism,  the  most  dauntless  prophets 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


21 


of  independence,  and  also  the  favorite  victims  of  the  cruelty  of 
spoilers  and  conquerors.  They  made  music  and  poetry  weapons 
and  bulwarks  against  foreign  oppression ;  and  the  oppressors 
used  them  as  they  had  used  the  priests  and  the  nobles.  A  price 
was  set  upon  their  heads.  But  while  the  last  scions  of  the  royal 
and  noble  races,  decimated  or  ruined  in  Ireland,  departed  to  die 
out  under  a  foreign  sky,  amid  the  miseries  of  exile,  the  succes- 
sor of  the  bards,  the  minstrel,  whom  nothing  could  tear  from  his 
native  soil,  was  pursued,  tracked,  and  taken  like  a  wild  beast,  or 
chained  and  slaughtered  like  the  most  dangerous  of  rebels. 

"  In  the  annals  of  the  atrocious  legislation,  directed  by  the 
English  against  the  Irish  people,  as  well  before  as  aftei  the 
Reformation,  special  penalties  against  the  minstrels,  bards,  and 
rhymers,  who  sustained  the  lords  and  gentlemen,  .  .  .  are  to  be 
met  with  at  every  step. 

"  Nevertheless,  the  harp  has  remained  the  emblem  of  Ireland, 
even  in  the  official  arms  of  the  British  Empire,  and  during  all 
last  century,  the  travelling  harper,  last  and  pitiful  successor  ol  the 
bards,  protected  by  Columba,  was  always  to  be  found  at  the  side 
of  the  priest,  to  celebrate  the  holy  mysteries  of  the  proscribed 
worship.  He  never  ceased  to  be  received  with  tender  respect 
under  the  thatched  roof  of  the  poor  Irish  peasant,  whom  he  con- 
soled in  his  misery  and  oppression  by  the  plaintive  tenderness 
and  solemn  sweetness  of  the  music  of  his  fathers." 

Could  any  expression  of  ours  set  forth  in  stronger  light  the 
Celtic  mind  and  heart  as  portrayed  in  those  native  elements  o* 
music  and  literature  ?  Could  any  thing  more  forcibly  depict  the 
real  character  of  the  race,  materialized,  as  it  were,  in  its  exterior 
institutions  %  We  were  right  in  saying  that  among  no  other  race 
was  what  is  generally  a  mere  adornment  to  a  nation,  raised  to 
the  dignity  of  a  social  and  political  instrument  as  it  was  among 
the  Celts.  Hence  it  was  impossible  for  persecution  and  oppres- 
sion to  destroy  it,  and  the  Celtic  nature  to-day  is  still  traditional, 
full  of  faith,  and  at  the  same  time  poetical  and  impulsive  as  when 
those  great  features  of  the  race  held  full  sway. 

Besides  music,  several  other  branches  of  art,  particularly 
architecture,  design,  and  calligraphy,  are  worthy  our  attention, 
presenting,  as  they  do,  features  unseen  anywhere  else;  and 
would  enable  us  still  better  to  understand  the  character  of  the 
Celtic  race.  But  our  limits  require  us  to  refrain  from  what 
might  be  thought  redundant  and  unnecessary. 

We  hasten,  therefore,  to  consider  another  branch  of  our  in- 
vestigation, one  which  might  be  esteemed  paramount  to  all 
others,  and  by  the  consideration  of  which  we  might  have  begun 
this  chapter,  only  that  its  importance  will  be  better  understood 
after  what  has  been  already  said.  It  is  a  chief  characteristic 
which  grew  so  perfectly  out  of  the  Celtic  mind  and  aotitudes, 


22 


TIIE  CELTIC  RACE. 


that  long  centuries  of  most  adverse  circumstances,  we  may  say,  a 
vhole  host  of  contrary  influences  were  unable  to  make  the  Celts 
entirely  abandon  it.  We  mean  the  clan  system,  which,  as  a 
system,  indeed,  has  disappeared  these  three  centuries  ago,  but 
which  may  be  said  to  subsist  still  in  the  clan  spirit,  as  ardent 
almost  among  them  as  ever. 

It  is  beyond  doubt  that  the  patriarchal  government  was  the 
first  established  among  men.  The  father  ruled  the  family.  As 
long  as  he  lived  he  was  lawgiver,  priest,  master ;  his  power  was 
acknowledged  as  absolute.  His  children,  even  after  their  mar- 
riage, remained  to  a  certain  extent  subject  to  him.  Yet  each 
became  in  turn  the  head  of  a  small  state,  ruled  with  the  primi- 
tive simplicity  of  the  first  family. 

In  the  East,  history  shows  us  that  the  patriarchal  government 
was  succeeded  immediately  by  an  extensive  and  complete  des- 
potism. Millions  of  men  soon  became  the  abject  slaves  of  an 
irresponsible  monarch.  Assyria,  Babylonia,  Egypt,  appear  at 
once  in  history  as  powerful  states  at  the  mercy  of  a  despot 
whose  will  was  law. 

But  in  other  more  favored  lands  the  family  was  succeeded  by 
the  tribe,  a  simple  development  of  the  former,  an  agglomeration 
of  men  of  the  same  blood,  who  could  all  trace  their  pedigree  to 
the  acknowledged  head ;  possessing,  consequently,  a  chief  of  the 
same  race,  either  hereditary  or  elective,  according  to  variable 
rules  always  based  on  tradition.  This  was  the  case  among  the 
Jews,  among  the  Arabs,  with  whom  the  system  yet  prevails ; 
even  it  seems  primitively  in  Hindostan,  where  modern  research 
has  brought  to  light  modes  of  holding  property  which  suppose 
the  same  svstem. 

But  especially  was  this  the  case  among  the  Celts,  where  the 
system  having  subsisted  up  to  recently,  it  can  be  better  known 
in  all  its  details.  Indeed,  their  adherence  to  it,  in  spite  of  every 
obstacle  that  could  oppose  it,  shows  that  it  was  natural  to  them, 
congenial  to  all  their  inclinations,  the  only  system  that  could 
satisfy  and  make  them  happy  ;  consequently,  a  characteristic  of 
the  race. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  system  we  speak  of  ruled  many 
a  land,  from  the  "Western  Irish  Sea  to  the  foot  of  the  Caucasus. 
Everywhere  within  those  limits  it  presented  the  same  general 
features  ;  in  Ireland  alone  has  it  been  preserved  in  all  its  vigor 
until  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  so  rooted  was 
it  in  the  Irish  blood.  Consequently  it  can  be  studied  better 
there.  What  we  say,  therefore,  will  be  chiefly  derived  from  the 
study  of  Irish  customs,  although  other  Gaelic  tribes  will  also 
furnish  us  with  data  for  our  observations. 

In  countries  ruled  by  the  clan  system,  the  territory  was  di- 
vided among  the  clans,  each  of  them  occupying  a  particular  dis- 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


23 


trict,  which  was  seldom  enlarged  or  diminished.  This  is  seen 
particularly  in  Palestine,  in  ancient  Gaul,  in  the  British  islands. 
Hence  their  hostile  encounters  had  always  for  object  movable 
plunder  of  any  kind,  chiefly  cattle  ;  never  conquest  nor  annexa- 
tion of  territory.  The  word  "  preying,"  which  is  generally  used 
for  their  expeditions,  explains  their  nature  at  once.  It  was  only 
in  the  event  of  the  extinction  of  a  clan  that  the  topography  was 
altered,  and  frequently  a  general  repartition  of  land  among 
neighboring  tribes  took  place. 

It  is  true,  when  a  surplus  population  compelled  them  to  send 
abroad  swarms  of  their  youth,  that  the  conquest  of  a  foreign 
country  became  an  absolute  necessity.  But,  on  such  occasions 
it  was  outside  of  Celtic  limits  that  they  spread  themselves,  tak- 
ing possession  of  a  territory  not  their  own.  They  almost  in- 
variably respected  the  land  of  other  clans  of  the  same  race,  even 
when  most  hostile  to  them  ;  exceptions  to  this  rule  are  extreme- 
ly rare.  It  was  thus  that  they  sent  large  armies  of  their  young 
men  into  Northern  Italy,  along  the  Danube,  into  Grecian  Al- 
bania and  Thrace,  and  finally  into  the  very  centre  of  Asia 
Minor.  The  fixing  of  the  geographical  position  of  each  tribe 
was,  therefore,  a  rule  among  them  ;  and  in  this  they  differed 
from  nomadic  nations,  such  as  the  Tartars  in  Asia  and  even  the 
North  American  Indians,  whose  hold  on  the  land  was  too  slight 
to  offer  any  prolonged  resistance  to  invaders.  Hence  the  posi- 
tion of  the  Gallic  civitates  was  definite,  and,  so  to  speak,  im- 
movable, as  we  may  see  by  consulting  the  maps  of  ancient  Gaul 
at  any  time  anterior  to  its  thorough  conquest  by  the  Romans ; 
not  so  among  the  German  tribes,  whose  positions  on  the  maps 
must  differ  according  to  time. 

We  have  already  seen  that  so  sacred  were  the  limits  of 
the  clan  districts,  that  one  of  the  chief  duties  of  ollamhs  and 
shanachies  was  to  know  them  and  see  them  preserved. 

But  if  territory  was  defined  in  Celtic  nations,  the  right  of 
holding  land  differed  in  the  case  of  the  chieftain  and  the  clans- 
man. The  head  of  the  tribe  had  a  certain  well-defined  portion 
assigned  to  him  in  virtue  of  his  office,  and  as  long  only  as  he 
held  it;  the  clansmen  held  the  remainder  in  common,  no  par- 
ticular spot  being  assigned  to  any  one  of  them. 

As  far,  therefore,  as  the  holding  of  land  was  concerned,  there 
were  neither  rich  nor  poor  among  the  Celts  ;  the  wealth  of  the 
best  of  them  consisted  of  cattle,  house  furniture,  money,  jewelry, 
and  other  movable  property.  In  the  time  of  St.  Columba,  the 
owner  of  five  cows  was  thought  to  be  a  very  poor  man,  although 
he  could  send  them  to  graze  on  any  free  land  of  his  tribe.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  the  almost  insurmountable  difficulty  of  the  land 
question  at  this  time  originated  in  the  attachment  of  the  people 
to  the  old  system,  which  had  not  yet  perished  in  their  aflec- 


21 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


tions ;  and  certainly  many  "  agrarian  outrages,"  as  they  are 
called,  have  had  their  source  in  the  traditions  of  a  people  once 
accustomed  to  move  and  act  freely  in  a  free  territory. 

It  is  needless  to  call  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  another 
consequence  of  that  state  of  things,  namely,  the  persistence  of 
territorial  possessions.  As  no  individual  among  them  could 
alienate  his  portion,  no  individual  or  family  could  absorb  the  ter- 
ritory to  the  exclusion  of  others ;  no  great  landed  aristocracy 
consequently  could  exist,  and  no  part  of  the  land  could  pass  by 
purchase  or  in  any  other  way  to  a  different  tribe  or  to  an 
alien  race.  The  force  of  arms  sometimes  produced  temporary 
changes,  nothing  more.  It  is  the  same  principle  which  has 
preserved  the  small  Indian  tribes  still  existing  in  Canada.  Their 
"  reservations,"  as  they  are  called,  having  been  legalized  by  the 
British  Government  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  from  the  French, 
the  territory  assigned  to  them  would  have  remained  in  their 
occupancy  forever  in  the  midst  of  the  ever-shifting  possessions 
of  the  white  race,  had  not  the  Ottawa  Parliament  lately  "  al- 
lowed" those  reservations  to  be  divided  among  the  families  of 
the  tribes,  with  power  for  each  to  dispose  of  its  portion,  a  power 
which  will  soon  banish  them  from  the  country  of  their  an- 
cestors. 

The  preceding  observations  do  not  conflict  in  the  least  with 
what  is  generally  said  of  inheritance  by  "  gavel  kind,"  whereby 
the  property  was  equally  divided  among  the  sons  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  daughters ;  as  it  is  clear  that  the  property  to  be  thus  di- 
vided was  only  movable  and  personal  property. 

But  after  the  land  we  must  consider  the  persons  under  the 
clan-svstem.    Under  this  head  we  shall  examine  brieflv : 

I.  The  political  offices,  such  as  the  dignities  of  Ard-Eigh  or 
supreme  monarch,  of  the  provincial  kings,  and  of  the  subordinate 
chieftains. 

II.  The  state  of  the  common  people. 

III.  The  bondsmen  or  slaves. 

All  literary  or  civil  offices,  not  political,  were  hereditary. 
Hence  the  professions  of  ollamh,  shanachy,  bard,  brehon,  phy- 
sician, passed  from  father  to  son — a  very  injudicious  arrange- 
ment apparently,  but  it  seems  nevertheless  to  have  worked  well 
in  Ireland.  Strange  to  say,  however,  these  various  classes  formed 
no  castes  as  in  Egypt  or  in  India,  because  no  one  was  pre- 
vented from  embracing  those  professions,  even  when  not  born 
to  them ;  and,  in  the  end,  success  in  study  was  the  only  requisite 
for  reaching  the  highest  round  of  the  literary  or  professional 
ladder,  as  in  China. 

But  a  stranger  and  more  dangerous  feature  of  the  system  was 
that  in  political  offices  the  dignities  were  hereditary  as  to  the 
family,  elective  as  to  the  person.    Hence  the  title  of  Ard-Eigh 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


25 


or  supreme  monarch  did  not  necessarily  pass  to  the  eldest  son  of 
the  former  king,  but  another  member  of  the  same  family  might 
be  elected  to  the  office,  and  was  even  designated  to  it  during  the 
lifetime  of  the  actual  holder,  thus  becoming  Tanist  or  heir-appa- 
rent. Every  one  sees  at  a  glance  the  numberless  disadvantages 
resulting  from  such  an  institution,  and  it  must  be  said  that  most 
of  the  bloody  crimes  recorded  in  Irish  history  sprang  from  it. 

At  first  sight,  the  dignity  of  supreme  monarch  would  almost 
seem  to  be  a  sinecure  under  the  clan  system,  as  the  authority 
attached  to  it  was  extremely  limited,  and  is  generally  compared 
in  its  relations  to  the  subordinate  kings,  as  that  of  metropolitan 
to  suffragan  bishops  in  the  Church.  Nevertheless,  all  Celtic  na- 
tions appear  to  have  attached  a  great  importance  to  it,  and  the  real 
misfortunes  of  Ireland  began  when  contention  ran  so  high  for 
the  office  that  the  people  were  divided  in  their  supreme  allegi- 
ance, and  no  Ard-Righ  was  acknowledged  at  the  same  time  by 
all ;  which  happened  precisely  at  the  period  of  the  invasion  under 
Strongbow. 

Some  few  facts  lately  brought  to  light  in  the  vicissitudes  of 
various  branches  of  the  Celtic  family  show  at  once  how  highly 
all  Celts,  wherever  they  might  be  settled,  esteemed  the  dignity 
of  supreme  monarch.  It  existed,  as  we  have  said,  in  all  Celtic 
countries,  and  consequently  in  Gaul ;  and  the  passage  in  the 
"  Commentaries  "  of  Julius  Caesar  on  the  subject  is  too  important 
to  be  entirely  passed  over. 

After  having  remarked  in  the  eleventh  chapter,  "  De  Bello 
Gallico,"  lib.  vi.,  that  in  Gaul  the  whole  country,  each  city  or 
clan,  and  every  subdivision  of  it,  even  to  single  houses,  presented 
the  strange  spectacle  of  two  parties,  "  factiones,"  always  in  pres- 
ence of  and  opposed  to  each  other,  he  says  in  Chapter  XII. : 
— at  the  arrival  of  Caesar  in  Gaul  the  Eduans  and  the  Sequa- 
nians were  contending  for  the  supreme  authority — "  The  latter 
civitas — clan — namely,  the  Sequanians,  being  inferior  in  power 
— because  from  time  immemorial  the  supreme  authority  had 
been  vested  in  the  Eduans — had  called  to  its  aid  the  Germans 
under  Ariovist  by  the  inducement  of  great  advantages  and  prom- 
ises. After  many  successful  battles,  in  which  the  entire  nobil- 
ity of  the  Eduan  clan  perished,  the  Sequanians  acquired  so  much 
power  that  they  rallied  to  themselves  the  greatest  number  of  the 
allies  of  their  rivals,  obliged  the  Eduans  to  give  as  hostages  the 
children  of  their  nobles  who  had  perished,  to  swear  that  they 
would  not  attempt  any  thing  against  their  conquerors,  and  even 
took  possession  of  a  part  of  their  territory,  and  thus  obtained  the 
supreme  command  of  all  Gaul." 

We  see  by  this  passage  that  there  was  a  supremacy  resting 
in  the  hands  of  some  one,  over  the  whole  nation.  The  success- 
ful tribe  had  a  chief  to  whom  that  supremacy  belonged.  Caesar, 


26 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


it  is  true,  does  not  speak  of  a  monarch  as  of  a  person,  but  attrib- 
utes the  power  to  the  "  civitas,"  the  tribe.  It  is  well  known, 
however,  that  each  tribe  had  a  head,  and  that  in  Celtic  countries 
the  power  was  never  vested  in  a  body  of  men,  assembly,  com- 
mittee, or  board,  as  we  say  in  modern  times,  but  in  the  chief- 
tain, whatever  may  have  been  his  degree. 

The  author  of  the  "  Commentaries  "  was  a  Roman  in  whose 
eyes  the  state  was  every  thing,  the  actual  office-holder,  dictator, 
consul,  or  prsetor,  a  mere  instrument  for  a  short  time ;  and  he 
was  too  apt,  like  most  of  his  countrymen,  to  judge  of  other  na- 
tions by  his  own. 

We  may  conclude  from  the  passage  quoted  that  there  was  a 
supreme  monarch  in  Gaul  as  well  as  in  Ireland,  and  modern 
historians  of  Gaul  have  acknowledged  it. 

But  there  is  yet  a  stranger  fact,  which  absolutely  cannot  be 
explained,  save  on  the  supposition  that  the  Celts  everywhere 
held  the  supreme  dignity  of  extreme  if  not  absolute  importance 
in  their  political  system. 

To  give  it  the  preeminence  it  deserves,  we  must  refer  to  a 
subsequent  event  in  the  history  of  the  Celts  in  Britain,  since  it 
happened  there  several  centuries  after  Csesar,  and  we  will  quote 
the  words  of  Augustin  Thierry,  who  relates  it : 

"  After  the  retreat  of  the  legions,  recalled  to  Italy  to  protect 
the  centre  of  the  empire  and  Rome  itself  against  the  invasion 
of  the  Goths,  the  Britons  ceased  to  acknowledge  the  power  of 
the  foreign  governors  set  over  their  provinces  and  cities.  The 
forms,  the  offices,  the  very  spirit  and  language  of  the  Roman  ad- 
ministration disappeared;  in  their  place  was  reconstituted  the 
traditional  authority  of  the  clannish  chieftains  formerly  abolished 
by  Roman  power.  Ancient  genealogies  carefully  preserved  by 
the  poets,  called  in  the  British  language  hairdd — bards — helped 
to  discover  those  who  could  pretend  to  the  dignity  of  chieftains 
of  tribes  or  families,  tribe  and  family  being  synonymous  in  their 
language ;  and  the  ties  of  relationship  formed  the  basis  of  their 
social  state.  Men  of  the  lowest  class,  among  that  people,  pre- 
served in  memory  the  long  line  of  their  ancestry  with  a  care 
scarcely  known  to  other  nations,  among  the  highest  lords  and 
princes.  All  the  British  Celts,  poor  or  rich,  had  to  establish 
their  genealogy  in  order  fully  to  enjoy  their  civil  rights  and  se- 
cure their  claim  of  property  in  the  territory  of  the  tribe.  The 
whole  belonging  to  a  primitive  family,  no  one  could  lay  any 
claim  to  the  soil,  unless  his  relationship  was  well  established. 

"  At  the  top  of  this  social  order,  composing  a  federation  of 
6mall  hereditary  sovereignties,  the  Britons,  freed  from  Roman 
power,  constituted  a  high  national  sovereignty ;  they  created  a 
chieftain  of  chieftains,  in  their  tongue  called  Penteym,  that  is 
to  say,  a  Icing  of  the  whole,  in  the  language  of  their  old  annals, 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


27 


and  they  made  him  elective. — It  was  also  formerly  the  custom 
in  Gaul. — The  object  was  to  introduce  into  their  system  a  kind 
of  centralization,  which,  however,  was  always  loose  among 
Celtic  tribes." — (Conquete  de  V  Angleterre,  liv.  i.) 

It  is  evident  to  us  that  if  the  Britons  constituted  a  supreme 
power,  when  freed  from  the  Roman  yoke,  it  was  only  because 
they  had  possessed  it  before  they  became  subject  to  that  yoke. 
It  is,  therefore,  safe  to  conclude  that  there  was  a  supreme  mon- 
arch in  Britain  and  in  Gaul  as  well  as  in  Ireland  ;  and  since  the 
Britons,  after  having  lost  for  several  centuries  their  autonomy  of 
government,  thought  of  reestablishing  this  supreme  authority  as 
soon  as  they  were  free  to  do  so,  it  is  clear  that  they  attached  a 
real  importance  to  it,  and  that  it  entered  as  an  essential  element 
into  the  social  fabric. 

But  what  in  reality  was  the  authority  of  the  Ard-Righ  in 
Ireland,  of  the  Penteyrn  in  Britain,  of  the  supreme  chief  in 
Gaul,  whose  name,  as  usual,  is  not  mentioned  by  Caesar? 

First,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  a  certain  extent  of  territory 
was  always  under  his  immediate  authority.  Then,  as  far  as  we 
can  gather  from  history,  there  was  a  reciprocity  of  obligations 
between  the  high  power  and  the  subordinate  kings  or  chieftains, 
the  former  granting  subsidies  to  the  latter,  who  in  turn  paid 
tribute  to  support  the  munificence  or  military  power  of  the  for- 
mer. 

We  know  from  the  Irish  annals  that  the  dignity  of  Ard-Righ 
was  always  sustained  by  alliances  with  some  of  the  provincial 
kings,  to  secure  the  submission  of  others,  and  we  have  a  hint  of 
the  same  nature  in  the  passage,  already  quoted,  from  Caesar,  as 
also  taking  place  in  Gaul. 

We  know  also  from  the  "  Book  of  Rights  "  that  the  tributes 
and  stipends  consisted  of  bondsmen,  silver  shields,  embroidered 
cloaks,  cattle,  weapons,  corn,  victuals,  or  any  other  contribution. 

The  Ard-Righ,  moreover,  convened  the  Feis,  or  general  as- 
sembly of  the  nation,  every  third  year ;  first  at  Tara,  and  after 
Tara  was  left  to  go  to  ruin  in  consequence  of  the  curse  of  St. 
Ruadhan  in  the  sixth  century,  wherever  the  supreme  monarch 
established  his  residence. 

The  order  of  succession  to  the  supreme  power  was  the  weak- 
est point  of  the  Irish  constitution,  and  became  the  cause  of  by 
far  the  greatest  portion  of  the  nation's  calamities.  Theoretically 
the  eldest  son — some  say  the  eldest  relative — of  the  monarch 
succeeded  him,  when  he  had  no  blemish  constituting  a  radical 
defect :  the  supreme  power,  however,  alternating  in  two  families. 
To  secure  the  succession,  the  heir-apparent  was  always  declared 
during  the  life  of  the  supreme  king  ;  but  this  constitutional  ar- 
rangement caused,  perhaps,  more  crimes  and  wars  than  any  other 
social  institution  among  the  Celts.    The  truth  is  that,  alter  the 


2S 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


heir-apparent,  sustained  by  some  provincial  king,  supplanted  the 
reigning  monarch,  one  01  the  provincial  chieftains  claimed  the 
crown  and  succeeded  to  it  by  violence. 

Yet  the  general  rule  that  the  monarch  was  to  belong  to  the 
race  of  Miledh  was  adhered  to  almost  without  exception.  One 
hundred  and  eighteen  sovereigns,  according  to  the  most  accredited 
annals,  governed  the  whole  island  from  the  Milesian  conquest 
to  St.  Patrick  in  432.  Of  these,  sixty  were  of  the  family  of  Here- 
mon,  settled  in  the  northern  part  of  the  island  ;  twenty-nine  of 
the  posterity  of  Heber,  settled  in  the  south  ;  twenty-four  of  that 
of  Ir ;  three  issued  from  Lugaid,  the  son  of  Ith.  All  these  were 
of  the  race  of  Miledh ;  one  only  was  a  firbolg,  or  plebeian,  and 
one  a  woman. 

It  is  certainly  very  remarkable  that  for  so  long  a  time — nearly 
two  thousand  years,  according  to  the  best  chronologists — Ireland 
was  ruled  by  princes  of  the  same  family.  The  fact  is  unparal- 
leled in  history,  and  shows  that  the  people  were  firmly  attached 
to  their  constitution,  such  as  it  was.  It  extorted  the  admiration 
of  Sir  John  Davies,  the  attorney-general  of  James  I.,  and  later 
of  Lord  Coke. 

The  functions  of  the  provincial  kings  of  Ulster,  Munster, 
Leinster,  and  Connaught,  were  in  their  several  districts  the  same 
as  those  which  the  Ard-Righ  exercised  over  the  whole  country. 
They  also  had  their  feuds  and  alliances  with  the  inferior  chief- 
tains, and  in  peaceful  times  there  was  also  a  reciprocity  of  obli- 
gations between  them.  Presents  were  given  by  the  superiors, 
tributes  by  the  inferiors ;  deliberations  in  assembly,  mutual 
agreement  for  public  defence,  wars  against  a  common  enemy, 
produced  among  them  traditional  rules  which  were  generally 
followed,  or  occasional  dissensions. 

Sometimes  a  province  had  two  kings,  chiefly  Munster,  which 
was  often  divided  into  north  and  south.  Each  king  had  his 
heir-apparent,  the  same  as  the  monarch.  Indeed,  every  heredi- 
tary office  had,  besides  its  actual  holder,  its  Tanist,  with  right  of 
succession.  Hence  causes  of  division  and  feuds  were  needlessly 
multiplied ;  yet  all  the  Celtic  tribes  adhered  tenaciously  to  all 
those  institutions  which  appeared  rooted  in  their  very  nature,  and 
which  contributed  to  foster  the  traditional  spirit  among  them. 

For  these  various  offices  and  their  inherent  rights  were  all 
derived  from  the  universally  prevailing  family  or  clannish  dispo- 
sition. Genealogies  and  traditions  ruled  the  whole,  and  gave, 
as  we  have  seen,  to  their  learned  men  a  most  important  part 
and  function  in  the  social  state ;  and  thus  what  the  Greek  and 
Latin  authors,  Julius  Caesar  principally,  have  told  us  of  the  Celtic 
Druids,  is  literally  true  of  the  ollamhs  in  their  various  degrees. 

But  the  clannish  spirit  chiefly  showed  itself  in  the  authority 
and  rights  of  every  chieftain  in  his  own  territory.    He  was  truly 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


29 


the  patriarch  of  all  under  him,  acknowledged  as  he  was  to  be 
the  head  of  the  family,  elected  by  all  to  that  office  at  the  death 
of  his  predecessor,  after  due  consultation  with  the  files  and 
shanachies,  to  whom  were  intrusted  the  guardianship  of  the  laws 
which  governed  the  clan,  and  the  preservation  of  the  rights  of  all 
according  to  the  strict  order  of  their  genealogies  and  the  tra- 
ditional rules  to  be  observed. 

The  power  of  the  chieftain  was  immense,  although  limited 
on  every^sitie  by  laws  and  customs.  It  was  based  on  the  deep 
affection  of  relationship  which  is  so  ardent  in  the  Celtic  nature. 
For  all  the  clansmen  were  related  by  blood  to  the  head  of  the 
tribe,  and  each  one  took  a  personal  pride  in  the  success  of  his 
undertakings.  No  feudal  lord  could  ever  expect  from  his  vassals 
the  like  self-devotion ;  for,  in  feudalism,  the  sense  of  honor,  in 
clanship,  family  affection,  was  the  chief  moving  power. 

In  clanship  the  type  was  not  an  army,  as  in  feudalism,  but  a 
family.  Such  a  system,  doubtless,  gave  rise  to  many  incon- 
veniences. "  The  breaking  up  of  all  general  authority,"  says  the 
Very  Rev.  Dean  Butler  (Introduction  to  Clyn's  "Annals"),  "and 
the  multiplication  of  petty  independent  principalities,  was  an 
abuse  incident  on  feudalism ;  it  was  inherent  in  the  very  essence 
of  the  patriarchal  or  family  system.  It  began,  as  feudalism 
ended,  with  small  independent  societies,  each  with  its  own  sepa- 
rate centre  of  attraction,  each  clustering  round  the  lord  or  the 
chief,  and  each  rather  repelling  than  attracting  all  similar  socie- 
ties. Yet  it  was  not  without  its  advantages.  If  feudalism  gave 
more  strength  to  attack  an  enemy,  clanship  secured  more  happi- 
ness at  home.  The  first  implied  only  equality  for  the  few,  serf- 
dom or  even  slavery  for  the  many ;  the  other  gave  a  feeling  of 
equality  to  all." 

It  was,  no  doubt,  this  feeling  of  equality,  joined  to  that  of 
relationship,  which  not  only  secured  more  happiness  for  the  Celt, 
but  which  so  closely  bound  the  nobility  of  the  land  to  the  infe- 
rior classes,  and  gave  these  latter  so  ardent  an  affection  for  their 
chieftains.  Clanship,  therefore,  imparted  a  peculiar  character 
to  the  whole  race,  and  its  effect  was  so  lasting  and  seemingly 
ineradicable  as  to  be  seen  in  the  nation  to-day. 

Wherever  feudalism  previously  prevailed,  we  remark  at  this 
time  a  fearful  hatred  existing  between  the  two  classes  of  the 
same  nation  ;  and  the  great  majority  of  modern  revolutions  had 
their  origin  in  that  terrible  antagonism.  The  same  never  existed, 
and  could  not  exist,  in  Celtic  countries  ;  and  if  England,  after  a 
conflict  of  many  centuries,  had  not  finally  succeeded  in  destroy- 
ing or  exiling  the  entire  nobility  of  Ireland,  we  should,  doubtless, 
see  to  this  veiy  day  that  tender  attachment  between  high  and 
low,  rich  and  poor,  which  existed  in  the  island  in  former  ages. 

This,  therefore,  not  only  imparted  a  peculiar  character  to  the 


30 


THE  CELTIC  KACE. 


people,  but  also  gave  to  each  subordinate  chieftain  an  immense 
power  over  his  clan  ;  and  it  is  doubtful  if  the  whole  history  of 
the  country  can  afford  a  single  example  of  the  clansmen  refusing 
obedience  to  their  chief,  unless  in  the  case  of  great  criminals 
placed  by  their  atrocities  under  the  ban  of  society  in  former 
times,  and  under  the  ban  of  the  Church,  since  the  establishment 
of  the  Christian  religion  among  them. 

The  previous  observations  give  us  an  insight  into  the  state 
of  the  people  in  Celtic  countries.  Since,  however,  we  know  that 
slavery  existed  among  them,  we  must  consider  a  moment  what 
kind  of  slavery  it  was,  and  how  soon  it  disappeared  without 
passing,  as  in  the  rest  of  Europe,  through  the  ordeal  of  serfdom. 

At  the  outset,  we  cannot,  as  some  have  done,  call  slaves  the 
conquered  races  and  poor  Milesians,  who,  according  to  the  an- 
cient annals  of  Ireland,  rose  in  insurrection  and  established  a 
king  of  their  own  during  what  is  supposed  to  be  the  first  century 
of  the  Christian  era.  The  attacotts,  as  they  were  called,  were 
not  slaves,  but  poor  agriculturists  obliged  to  pay  heavy  rents  : 
their  very  name  in  the  Celtic  language  means  "rent-paying 
tribes  or  people."  Their  oppression  never  reached  the  degree 
of  suffering  under  which  the  Irish  small  farmers  of  our  days  are 
groaning.  For,  according  to  history,  they  could  in  three  years 
prepare  from  their  surplus  productions  a  great  feast,  to  which 
the  monarch  and  all  his  chieftains,  with  their  retinue,  were  in- 
vited, to  be  treacherously  assassinated  at  the  end  of  the  banquet. 
The  great  plain  of  Magh  Cro,  now  Moy  Cru,  near  Knockma,  in 
the  county  of  Galway,  was  required  for  such  a  monster  feast ; 
profusion  of  meats,  delicacies,  and  drinks  was,  of  course,  a  neces- 
sity for  the  entertainment  of  such  a  number  of  high-born  and 
athletic  guests,  and  the  feast  lasted  nine  days.  Who  can  suppose 
that  in  our  times  the  free  cottiers  of  a  whole  province  in  Ireland, 
after  supporting  their  families  and  paying  their  rent,  could  spare 
even  in  three  years  the  money  and  means  requisite  to  meet  the 
demands  of  such  an  occasion  ?  But  the  simple  enunciation  of 
the  fact  proves  at  least  that  the  attacotts  were  no  slaves,  but  at 
most  merely  an  inferior  caste,  deprived  of  many  civil  rights,  and 
compelled  to  pay  taxes  on  land,  contrary  to  the  universal  custom 
of  Celtic  countries. 

Caesar,  it  is  true,  pretends  that  real  slavery  existed  among 
the  Celts  in  Gaul.  But  a  close  examination  of  that  short  pas- 
sage in  his  "  Commentaries,"  upon  which  this  opinion  is  based, 
will  prove  to  us  that  the  slavery  he  mentions  was  a  very  differ- 
ent thing  from  that  existing  among  all  other  nations  of  anti- 
quity. 

"All  over  Gaul,"  he  says,  "there  are  two  classes  of  men  who 
enjoy  all  the  honors  and  social  standing  in  the  state — the  Druids 
and  the  knights.    The  plebeians  are  looked  upon  almost  as 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


31 


slaves,  having  no  share  in  public  affairs.  Many  among  them, 
loaded  with  debt,  heavily  taxed,  or  oppressed  by  trie  higher  class, 
give  themselves  in  servitude  to  the  nobility,  and  then,  in  has 
eadem  omnia  sunt  jura  quae  domi/nis  in  servos,  the  nobles  lord  it 
over  them  as,  with  us,  masters  over  their  slaves." 

It  is  clear  from  this  very  passage  that  among  the  Celts  no 
such  servile  class  existed  as  among  the  Romans  and  other  nations 
of  antiquity.  The  plebeians,  as  Caesar  calls  them,  that  is  to  say, 
the  simple  clansmen,  held  no  office  in  the  state,  were  not  sum- 
moned to  the  councils  of  the  nation,  and,  on  that  account,  were 
nobodies  in  the  opinion  of  the  writer.  But  the  very  name  he 
gives  them— -plebs — shows  that  they  were  no  more  real  slaves 
than  the  Roman  plebs.  They  exercised  their  functions  in  the 
state  by  the  elections,  and  Caesar  did  not  know  they  could  reach 
public  office  by  application  to  study,  and  by  being  ordained  to 
the  rank  of  file,  or  shanachy,  or  brehon,  in  Ireland,  at  least: 
and  this  gave  them  a  direct  share  in  public  affairs. 

He  adds  that  debt,  taxation,  and  oppression,  obliged  a  great 
many  to  give  themselves  in  servitude,  and  that  then  they  were 
among  the  Celts  what  slaves  were  among  the  Romans. 

This  assertion  of  Caesar  requires  some  examination.  That 
there  were  slaves  among  the  Gaels,  and  particularly  in  Ireland, 
we  know  from  several  passages  of  old  writers  preserved  in  the 
various  annals  of  the  country.  St.  Patrick  himself  was  a  slave 
there  in  his  youth,  and  we  learn  from  his  history  and  other 
sources  how  slaves  were  generally  procured,  namely,  by  piratical 
expeditions  to  the  coast  of  Britain  or  Gaul.  The  Irish  curraghs% 
in  pagan  times,  started  from  the  eastern  or  southern  shores  of 
the  island,  and,  landing  on  the  continent  or  on  some  British  isle, 
they  captured  women,  children,  and  even  men,  when  the  crew 
of  the  craft  was  strong  enough  to  overcome  them ;  the  captives 
were  then  taken  to  Ireland  and  sold  there.  They  lost  their 
rights,  were  reduced  to  the  state  of  "  chattels,"  and  thus  became 
real  slaves.  Among  the  presents  made  by  a  superior  to  an  in- 
ferior chieftain  are  mentioned  bondsmen  and  bondsmaids.  We 
cannot  be  surprised  at  this,  since  the  same  thing  took  place 
among  the  most  ancient  patriarchal  tribes  of  the  East,  and  the 
Bible  has  made  us  all  acquainted  with  the  male  and  female  ser- 
vants of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  who  are  also  called  bonds- 
men and  bondswomen.  Among  the  Celts,  therefore,  slaves  were 
of  two  kinds :  those  stolen  from  foreign  tribes,  and  those  who 
had,  as  it  were,  sold  themselves,  in  order  to  escape  a  heavier  op- 
pression :  these  latter  are  the  ones  mentioned  by  Caesar. 

The  number  of  the  first  class  must  always  have  been  very 
small,  at  least  in  Ireland  and  Britain,  since  the  piratical  ex- 
cursions of  the  Celtic  tribes  inhabiting  those  countries  were 
almost  invariably  undertaken  in  curraghs,  which  could  only 


32  THE  CELTIC  RACE. 

bring  a  few  of  these  unfortunate  individuals  from  a  foreign 
country. 

As  to  the  other  class,  whatever  Caesar  may  say  of  their  num- 
ber in  Gaul,  making  it  composed  of  the  greatest  part  of  the  ple- 
beians or  common  clansmen,  we  have  no  doubt  but  that  he  was 
mistaken,  and  that  the  number  of  real  slaves  reduced  to  that 
state  by  their  own  act  must  have  always  been  remarkably 
small. 

How  could  we  otherwise  account  for  the  numerous  armies 
levied  by  the  Gaulish  chieftains  against  the  power  of  Rome,  or 
by  the  British  and  Irish  lords  in  their  continual  internecine 
wars  ?  The  clansmen  engaged  in  both  cases  were  certainly  free- 
men, fighting  with  the  determination  which  freedom  alone  can 
give,  and  this  consideration  of  itself  suffices  to  show  that  the 
great  mass  of  the  Celtic  tribes  was  never  reduced  to  slavery  or 
even  to  serfdom. 

Moreover,  the  whole  drift  of  the  Irish  annals  goes  to  prove 
that  slavery  never  included  any  perceptible  class  of  the  Celtic 
population ;  it  always  remained  individual  and  domestic,  never 
endangering  the  safety  of  the  state,  never  tending  to  insurrec- 
tion and  civil  disorder,  never  requiring  the  vigilance  nor  even 
the  care  of  the  masters  and  lords. 

The  story  of  Libran,  recorded  in  the  life  of  St.  Columbkill,  is 
so  pertinent  to  our  present  purpose,  and  so  well  adapted  to  give 
us  a  true  idea  of  what  voluntary  slavery  was  among  the  Celtic 
tribes,  that  we  will  give  it  entire  in  the  words  ot  Montalem- 
bert : 

"  It  was  one  day  announced  to  Columba  in  Iona  that  a  stran- 

fer  had  just  landed  from  Ireland,  and  Columba  went  to  meet 
im  in  the  house  reserved  for  guests,  to  talk  with  him  in  private 
and  question  him  as  to  his  dwelling-place,  his  family,  and  the 
cause  of  his  journey.  The  stranger  told  him  that  he  had  under- 
taken this  painful  voyage  in  order,  under  the  monastic  habit  and 
in  exile,  to  expiate  his  sins.  Columba,  desirous  of  trying  the 
reality  of  his  repentance,  drew  a  most  repulsive  picture  of  the 
hardships  and  difficult  obligations  of  the  new  life.  *  I  am  ready,' 
said  the  stranger,  '  to  submit  to  the  most  cruel  and  humiliating 
conditions  that  thou  canst  command  me.'  And,  after  having 
made  confession,  he  swore,  still  upon  his  knees,  to  accomplish 
all  the  requirements  of  penitence.  6  It  is  well,'  said  the  abbot : 
4  now  rise  from  thy  knees,  seat  thyself,  and  listen.  You  must 
first  do  penance  for  seven  years  in  the  neighboring  island  of 
Tirce,  after  which  I  will  see  you  again.'  '  But,'  said  the  penitent, 
still  agitated  by  remorse,  6  how  can  I  expiate  a  perjury  of  which 
I  have  not  yet  spoken?  Before  I  left  my  country  I  killed  a  poor 
man.  I  was  about  to  suffer  the  punishment  of  death  for  that  crime, 
and  I  was  already  in  irons,  when  one  of  my  relatives,  who  is 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


33 


very  rich,  delivered  me  by  paying  the  composition  demanded. 
I  swore  that  I  would  serve  him  all  my  life ;  but,  after  some  days 
of  service,  I  abandoned  him,  and  here  I  am  notwithstanding  my 
oath.'  Upon  this  the  saint  added  that  he  would  only  be  admit- 
ted to  the  paschal  communion  after  his  seven  years  of  penitence. 

"  When  these  were  completed,  Columba,  after  having  given 
him  the  communion  with  his  own  hand,  sent  him  back  to  Ireland 
to  his  patron,  carrying  a  sword  with  an  ivory  handle  for  his  ran- 
som. The  patron,  however,  moved  by  the  entreaties  of  his  wife, 
gave  the  penitent  his  pardon  without  ransom.  *  Why  should  we 
accept  the  price  sent  us  by  the  holy  Columba?  We  are  not 
worthy  of  it.  The  request  of  such  an  intercessor  should  be 
granted  freely.  His  blessing  will  do  more  for  us  than  any  ran- 
som.' And  immediately  he  detached  the  girdle  from  his  waist, 
which  was  the  ordinary  form  in  Ireland  for  the  manumission  of 
captives  or  slaves.  Columba  had,  besides,  ordered  his  penitent 
to  remain  with  his  old  father  and  mother  until  he  had  rendered 
to  them  the  last  services.  This  accomplished,  his  brothers  let 
him  go,  saying, 4  Far  be  it  from  us  to  detain  a  man  who  has  labored 
seven  years  for  the  salvation  of  his  soul  with  the  holy  Columba ! ' 
He  then  returned  to  Ion  a,  bringing  with  him  the  sword  which 
was  to  have  been  his  ransom.  i  Henceforward  thou  shalt  be 
called  Libran,  for  thou  art  free  and  emancipated  from  all  ties,' 
said  Columba ;  and  he  immediately  admitted  him  to  take  the 
monastic  vows." 

Servitude,  therefore,  continued  in  Ireland  after  the  establish- 
ment of  Christianity ;  but  how  different  from  the  slavery  of 
other  European  countries,  which  it  took  so  many  ages  to  de- 
stroy, and  which  had  to  pass  through  so  many  different  stages ! 
Although  we  cannot  know  precisely  when  servitude  was  com- 
pletely abolished  among  the  Celts,  the  total  silence  of  the  con- 
temporary annals  on  the  subject  justifies  the  belief  that  the 
Danes,  on  their  first  landing,  found  no  real  slaves  in  the  coun- 
try ;  and,  if  the  Danes  themselves  oppressed  the  people  wherever 
they  established  their  power,  they  could  not  make  a  social  insti- 
tution of  slavery.  It  had  never  been  more  than  a  domestic 
arrangement ;  it  could  not  become  a  state  affair,  as  among  the 
nations  of  antiquity. 

In  clannish  tribes,  therefore,  and  particularly  among  the 
Celts,  the  personal  freedom  of  the  lowest  clansman  was  the 
rule,  deprivation  of  individual  liberty  the  exception.  Hence  the 
manners  of  the  people  were  altogether  free  from  the  abject  de- 
portment of  slaves  and  villeins  in  other  nations — a  cringing- 
disposition  of  the  lower  class  toward  their  superiors,  which  con- 
tinues even  to  this  day  among  the  peasantry  of  Europe,  and 
which  patriarchal  nations  have  never  known.  The  Norman  in- 
vaders of  Ireland,  in  the  twelfth  century,  were  struck  with  the 
3 


34 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


easy  freedom  of  manner  and  speech  of  the  people,  so  different 
from  that  of  the  lower  orders  in  feudal  countries.  They  soon 
even  came  to  like  it ;  and  the  supercilious  followers  of  Strong- 
bow  readily  adopted  the  dress,  the  habits,  the  language,  and  the 
good-humor  of  the  Celts,  in  the  midst  of  whom  they  found  them- 
selves settled. 

And  it  is  proper  here  to  show  what  social  dispositions  and 
habits  were  the  natural  result  of  the  clan  system,  so  as  to  be- 
come characteristic  of  the  race,  and  to  endure  forever,  as  long  at 
least  as  the  race  itself.  The  artless  family  state  of  the  sept  natu- 
rally developed  a  peculiarly  social  feeling,  much  less  complicated 
than  in  nations  more  artificially  constituted,  but  of  a  much  deep- 
er and  more  lasting  character.  In  the  very  nature  of  the  mind 
of  those  tribes  there  must  have  been  a  great  simplicity  of  ideas, 
and  on  that  account  an  extraordinary  tenacity  of  belief  and  will. 
There  is  no  complication  and  systematic  combination  of  political, 
moral,  and  social  views,  but  a  few  axioms  of  life  adhered  to  with 
a  most  admirable  energy ;  and  we  therefore  find  a  singleness  of 
purpose,  a  unity  of  national  and  religious  feeling,  among  all  the 
individuals  of  the  tribe. 

As  nothing  is  complicated  and  systematized  among  them,  the 
political  system  must  be  extremely  simple,  and  based  entirely  on 
the  family.  And  family  ideas  being  as  absolute  as  they  are  sim- 
ple, the  political  system  also  becomes  absolute  and  lasting ;  with- 
out improving,  it  is  true,  but  also  without  the  constant  changes 
which  bring  misery  with  revolution  to  thoughtful,  reflective,  and 
systematic  nations.  What  a  frightful  amount  of  misfortunes  has 
not  logic,  as  it  is  called,  brought  upon  the  French  !  It  was  in 
the  name  of  logical  and  metaphysical  principles  that  the  fabric 
of  society  was  destroyed  a  hundred  years  ago,  to  make  room  for 
what  was  then  called  a  more  rationally-constituted  edifice ;  but 
the  new  building  is  not  yet  finished,  and  God  only  knows  when 
it  will  be ! 

The  few  axioms  lying  at  the  base  of  the  Celtic  mind  with 
respect  to  government  are  much  preferable,  because  much  more 
conducive  to  stability,  and  consequently  to  peace  and  order, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  local  agitation  and  temporary  feuds 
and  divisions.  Hence  we  see  the  permanence  of  the  supreme 
authority  resting  in  one  family  among  the  Celts  through  so 
many  ages,  in  spite  of  continual  wrangling  for  that  supreme 
power.  Hence  the  permanence  of  territorial  limits  in  spite  of 
lasting  feuds,  although  territory  was  not  invested  in  any  particu- 
lar inheriting  family,  but  in  a  purely  moral  being  called  the  clan 
or  sept. 

As  for  the  moral  and  social  feelings  in  those  tribes,  they  are 
not  drawn  coldly  from  the  mind,  and  sternly  imposed  by  the  ex- 
ternal law,  in  the  form  of  axioms  and  enactments,  as  was  the  case 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


35 


chiefly  in  Sparta,  and  as  is  still  the  case  in  the  Chinese  Empire 
to-day  ;  but  they  gush  forth  impetuously  from  impulsive  and 
loving  hearts,  and  spread  like  living  waters  which  no  artificially- 
cut  stones  can  bank  and  confine,  but  which  must  expand  freely 
in  the  land  they  fertilize. 

Beep  affection,  then,  is  with  them  at  the  root  of  all  moral 
and  social  feelings ;  and  as  all  those  feelings,  even  the  national 
and  patriotic,  are  merged  in  real  domestic  sentiment,  a  great  pu- 
rity of  morals  must  exist  among  them,  nothing  being  so  condu- 
cive thereto  as  family  affections. 

Above  all,  when  those  purely-natural  dispositions  are  raised 
to  the  level  of  the  supernatural  ones  by  a  divinely-inspired  code, 
by  the  sublime  elevation  of  Christian  purity,  then  can  there  be 
found  nothing  on  earth  more  lovely  and  admirable.  Chastity  is  al- 
ways attractive  to  a  pure  heart ;  patriarchal  guilelessness  becomes 
sacred  even  to  the  corrupt,  if  not  altogether  hardened,  man. 

Of  course  we  do  not  pretend  that  this  happy  state  of  things 
is  without  its  exceptions ;  that  the  light  has  no  shadow,  the 
beauty  no  occasional  blemish.  We  speak  of  the  generality,  or 
at  least  of  the  majority,  of  cases  ;  for  perfection  cannot  belong 
to  this  world. 

Yet  mysticism  is  entirely  absent  from  such  a  moral  and  re- 
ligious state,  on  account,  perhaps,  of  the  paucity  of  ideas  by 
which  the  heart  is  ruled,  and  perhaps  also  on  account  of  the 
artless  simplicity  which  characterizes  every  thing  in  primitively- 
constituted  nations.  And,  wonderful  to  say,  without  any  mysti- 
cism there  is  often  among  them  a  perfect  holiness  of  life,  adapt- 
ing itself  to  all  circumstances,  climates,  and  associations.  The 
same  heart  of  a  young  maiden  is  capable  of  embracing  a  married 
life  or  of  devoting  itself  to  religious  celibacy ;  and  in  either  case 
the  duties  of  each  are  performed  with  the  most  perfect  simplicity 
and  the  highest  sanctity.  Hence,  how  often  does  a  trifling  cir- 
cumstance determine  for  her  her  whole  subsequent  life,  and 
make  her  either  the  mother  of  a  family  or  the  devoted  spouse  of 
Christ !  Yet,  the  final  determination  once  taken,  the  whole  after- 
life seems  to  have  been  predetermined  from  infancy  as  though 
no  other  course  could  have  been  possible. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  sensual  corruption  is  particularly 
engendered  by  an  artificial  state  of  society,  which  necessarily 
fosters  morbidity  of  imagination  and  nervous  excitability.  A 
primitive  and  patriarchal  life,  on  the  contrary,  leads  to  modera- 
tion in  all  things,  and  repose  of  the  senses. 

Herein  is  found  the  explanation  of  the  eagerness  with  which 
the  Celts  everywhere,  but  particularly  in  Ireland,  as  soon  as 
Christianity  was  preached  to  them,  rushed  to  a  life  of  perfection 
and  continence.  St.  Patrick  himself  expressed  his  surprise,  and 
showed,  by  several  words  in  his  "  Confessio,"  that  he  was  scarce- 


36 


TIIE  CELTIC  RACE. 


.y  prepared  for  it.  "  The  eons  of  Irishmen,"  he  says,  "  and  the 
daughters  of  their  chieftains,  want  to  become  monks  and  virgins 
of  Christ."  We  know  what  a  multitude  of  monasteries  and 
nunneries  sprang  up  all  over  the  island  in  the  very  days  of  the 
first  apostle  and  of  his  immediate  successors.  Montalembert  re- 
marks that,  according  to  the  most  reliable  and  oldest  documents, 
a  religious  house  is  scarcely  mentioned  which  contained  less  than 
three  thousand  monks  or  nuns.  It  appeared  to  be  a  consecrated 
number ;  and  this  took  place  immediately  after  the  conversion 
of  the  island  to  Christianity,  while  even  still  a  great  number 
were  pagans. 

"  There  was  particularly,"  says  St.  Patrick,  "  one  blessed 
Irish  girl,  gentle  born,  most  beautiful,  already  of  a  marriageable 
age,  whom  I  had  baptized.  After  a  few  days  she  came  back  and 
told  me  that  a  messenger  of  God  had  appeared  to  her,  advis- 
ing her  to  become  a  virgin  of  Christ,  and  live  united  to  God. 
Thanks  be  to  the  Almighty !  Six  days  after,  she  obtained,  with 
the  greatest  joy  and  avidity,  what  she  wished.  The  same  must 
be  said  of  all  the  virgins  of  God ;  their  parents — those  remain- 
ing pagans,  no  doubt — instead  of  approving  of  it,  persecute 
them,  and  load  them  with  obloquy  ;  yet  their  number  increases 
constantly ;  and,  indeed,  of  all  those  that  have  been  thus  born 
to  Christ,  I  cannot  give  the  number,  besides  those  living  in  holy 
widowhood,  and  keeping  continency  in  the  midst  of  the  world. 

"  But  those  girls  chiefly  suffer  most  who  are  bound  to  ser- 
vice ;  they  are  often  subjected  to  terrors  and  threats — from  pa- 
gan masters  surely — yet  they  persevere.  The  Lord  has  given 
his  holy  grace  of  purity  to  those  servant-girls ;  the  more  they 
are  tempted  against  chastity,  the  more  able  they  show  them- 
selves to  keep  it." 

Does  not  this  passage,  written  by  St.  Patrick,  describe  pre- 
cisely what  is  now  of  every-day  occurrence  wherever  the  Irish 
emigrate  ?  The  Celts,  therefore,  were  evidently  at  the  time  of 
their  conversion  what  they  are  now  ;  and  it  has  been  justly  re- 
marked that,  of  all  nations  whose  records  have  been  kept  in  the 
history  of  the  Catholic  Church,  they  have  been  the  only  ones 
whose  chieftains,  princes,  even  kings,  have  shown  themselves  al- 
most as  eager  to  become,  not  only  Christians,  but  even  monks 
and  priests,  as  the  last  of  their  clansmen  and  vassals.  Every 
where  else  the  lower  orders  chiefly  have  furnished  the  first  fol- 
lowers of  Christ,  the  rich  and  the  great  being  few  at  the  begin- 
ning, and  forming  only  the  exception. 

The  evident  consequence  of  this  well-attested  fact  is  that  the 
pagan  Celts,  even  of  the  highest  rank,  generally  led  pure  lives, 
and  admired  chastity.  But  there  is  something  more.  Morality 
rests  on  the  sense  oi  duty ;  the  deeper  that  sense  is  imprinted  in 
the  heart  of  man,  the  more  man  becomes  truly  moral  and  holy 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


37 


It  can  be  almost  demonstrated  that  scarcely  any  thing  gives 
more  solidity  to  the  sense  of  duty  than  a  simple  and  patriarchal 
life.  Their  views  of  morals  being  no  more  complicated  than 
their  views  of  any  thing  else  ;  being  accustomed  to  reduce  every 
thing  of  a  spiritual,  moral  nature  to  a  few  feelings  and  axioms, 
as  it  were,  but  at  the  same  time  becoming  strongly  attached  to 
them  on  account  of  the  importance  which  every  man  naturally 
bestows  on  matters  of  that  sort ;  what  among  other  nations  forms 
a  complicated  code  of  morality  more  or  less  pure,  more  or  less 
corrupt,  for  the  nations  of  which  we  speak  becomes  compressed, 
so  to  speak,  in  a  nutshell,  and,  the  essence  remaining  always  at 
the  bottom,  the  idea  of  duty  grows  paramount  in  their  minds 
and  hearts,  and  every  thing  they  do  is  illumined  by  that  light  of 
the  human  conscience,  which,  after  all,  is  for  each  one  of  us  the 
voice  of  God.  False  issues  do  not  distract  their  minds,  and  give 
a  wrong  bias  to  the  conscience.  Hence  Celtic  tribes,  by  their 
very  nature,  were  strictly  conscientious. 

So  preeminently  was  this  the  case  with  them  that  spiritual 
things  in  their  eyes  became,  as  they  truly  are,  real  and  substan- 
tial. Hence  their  religion  was  not  an  exterior  thing  only.  On 
the  contrary,  exterior  rites  were  in  their  eyes  only  symbolical, 
and  mere  emblems  of  the  reality  which  they  covered. 

It  should,  therefore,  be  no  matter  of  surprise  to  us  to  find  that 
for  them  religion  has  always  been  above  all  things  ;  that  they  have 
always  sacrificed  to  it  whatever  is  dear  to  man  on  earth.  They 
all  seem  to  feel  as  instinctively  and  deeply  as  the  thoroughly  cul- 
tivated and  superior  mind  of  Thomas  More  did,  that  eternal 
things  are  infinitely  superior  to  whatever  is  temporal,  and  that  a 
wise  man  ought  to  give  up  every  thing  rather  than  be  faithless  to 
his  religion. 

From  the  previous  remarks,  we  may  conclude,  with  Mr.  Mat1 
thew  Arnold,  who  has  applied  his  critical  and  appreciative  mind 
to  the  study  of  the  Celtic  character,  that  "  the  Celtic  genius  has 
sentiment  as  its  main  basis,  with  love  of  beautv,  charm,  and 
spirituality  for  its  excellence,"  but,  he  adds,  "  inefiectualness  and 
self-will  for  its  defects."  On  these  last  words  we  may  be  allowed 
to  make  a  few  concluding  observations. 

If  by  "  ineffectualness "  is  understood  that,  owing  to  their 
impulsive  nature,  the  Celts  often  attempted  more  than  they 
could  accomplish,  and  thus  failed ;  or  that  on  many  occasions  of 
less  import  they  changed  their  mind,  and,  after  a  slight  effort, 
did  not  persevere  in  an  undertaking  just  begun,  there  is  no 
doubt  of  the  truth  of  the  observation.  But,  if  the  celebrated 
writer  meant  to  say  that  this  defect  of  character  always  accom- 
panied the  Celts  in  whatever  they  attempted,  and  that  thus  they 
were  constantly  foiled  and  never  successful  in  any  thing;  or, 
still  worse,  that,  owing  to  want  of  perseverance  and  of  energy, 


38 


THE  CELTIC  RACE. 


they  too  soon  relaxed  in  their  efforts,  and  that  every  enterprise 
and  determination  on  their  part  became  "  ineffectual " — we  so 
far  disagree  with  him  that  the  main  object  of  the  following  pages 
will  be  to  contradict  these  positions,  and  to  show  by  the  nistory 
of  the  race,  in  Ireland  at  least,  that,  owing  precisely  to  their 
"  self-will,"  they  were  never  ultimately  unsuccessful  in  their  as- 
pirations ;  bnt  that,  on  the  contrary,  they  have  always  in  the  end 
effected  what  with  their  accustomed  perseverance  and  self-will 
they  have  at  all  times  stood  for.  At  least  this  we  hope  will  be- 
come evident,  whenever  they  had  a  great  object  in  view,  and 
with  respect  to  things  to  which  they  attached  a  real  and  para 
mount  importance. 


CHAPTEE  II. 


THE  WORLD  UNDER  THE  LEAD  OF  THE  EUROPEAN  RACES. — MISSION 
OF  THE  IRISH  RACE  IN  THE  MOVEMENT. 

"  The  old  prophecies  are  being  fulfilled ;  Japhet  takes  pos- 
session of  the  tents  of  Sem." — (De  Maistre,  Lettre  au  Comte 
(PAvaray.) 

The  following  considerations  will  at  once  demonstrate  the 
importance  and  reality  of  the  subject  which  we  have  undertaken 
to  treat  upon : 

It  was  at  the  second  birth  of  mankind,  when  the  family  of 
Noah,  left  alone  after  the  flood,  was  to  originate  a  new  state  of 
things,  and  in  its  posterity  to  take  possession  of  all  the  conti- 
nents and  islands  of  the  globe,  that  the  prophecy  alluded  to  at 
the  head  of  this  chapter  was  uttered,  to  be  afterward  recorded 
by  Moses,  and  preserved  by  the  Hebrews  and  the  Christians  till 
the  end  of  time. 

Never  before  has  it  been  so  near  its  accomplishment  as  we 
see  it  now ;  and  the  great  Joseph  de  Maistre  was  the  first  to 
point  this  out  distinctly.  Yet  he  did  not  intend  to  say  that  it  is 
only  in  our  times  that  Europe  has  been  placed  by  Providence  at 
the  head  of  human  affairs  ;  he  only  meant  that  what  the  prophet 
saw  and  announced  six  thousand  years  ago  seems  now  to  be  on 
the  point  of  complete  realization. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  examine,  first,  in  a  general  way,  how 
the  race  of  Japhet,  to  whom  Europe  was  given  as  a  dwelling- 
place,  gradually. crept  more  and  more  into  prominence  after  hav- 
ing at  the  outset  been  cast  into  the  shade  by  the  posterity  of  the 
two  other  sons  of  JSToah. 

The  Asiatic  and  African  races,  the  posterity  of  Sem  and 
Cham,  appear  in  our  days  destitute  of  all  energy,  and  incapable 
not  only  of  ruling  over  foreign  races,  but  even  of  standing  alone 
and  escaping  a  foreign  yoke.  It  has  not  been  so  from  the  be- 
ginning. There  was  a  period  of  wonderful  activity  for  them. 
Asia  and  Africa  for  many  ages  were  in  turn  the  respective 
centres  of  civilization  and  of  human  history ;  and  the  material 


40 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


relics  of  tlieir  former  energy  still  astonish  all  European  trarel- 
lers  who  visit  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt,  the  obelisks  and  temples 
of  Nubia  and  Ethiopia,  the  immense  stone  structures  of  Arabia 
Petraea  and  Persia,  as  well  as  the  stupendous  pagodas  of  Hin- 
dostan.  flow,  under  a  burning  sun,  men  of  those  now-despised 
races  could  raise  structures  so  mighty  and  so  vast  in  number ; 
how  the  ancestors  of  the  now-wretched  Copt,  of  the  wandering 
Bedouin,  of  the  effete  Persian,  of  the  dreamy  Hindoo,  could 
display  such  mental  vigor  and  such  physical  endurance  as  the 
remains  of  their  architectural  skill  and  even  of  their  literature 
plainly  show,  is  a  mystery  which  no  one  has  hitherto  attempted 
to  solve.  Nothing  in  modern  Europe,  where  such  activity  now 
prevails,  can  compare  with  what  the  Eastern  and  Southern  races 
accomplished  thousands  of  years  ago.  Ethiopia,  now  buried  in 
sand  and  in  sleep,  was,  according  to  Heeren,  the  most  reliable 
observer  of  antiquity  in  our  days,  a  land  of  immense  commercial 
enterprise,  and  wonderful  architectural  skill  and  energy.  In  all 
probability  Egypt  received  her  civilization  from  this  country  ; 
and  Homer  sings  of  the  renowned  prosperity  of  the  long-lived 
and  happy  Ethiopians.  It  is  useless  to  repeat  here  what  we  have 
all  learned  in  our  youth  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  in  Mesopota- 
mia ;  of  Persepolis,  in  fertile  and  blooming  Iran  ;  of  the  now 
ruined  mountain-cities  of  Idumsea  and  Northern  Arabia  ;  of 
Thebes  and  Memphis  ;  of  Thadmor,  in  Syria  ;  of  Balk  and  Sam- 
arcand,  in  Central  Asia ;  of  the  wonderful  cities  on  the  banks 
of  the  Ganges  and  in  the  southern  districts  of  the  peninsula  of 
Hindostan. 

That  the  ancestors  of  the  miserable  men  who  continue  to 
exist  in  all  those  countries  were  able  to  raise  fabrics  which  time 
seems  powerless  to  destroy,  while  their  descendants  can  scarcely 
erect  huts  for  their  habitation,  which  are  buried  under  the  sand 
at  the  first  breath  of  the  storm,  is  inexplicable,  especially  when 
we  take  into  consideration  the  principles  of  the  modern  doctrine 
of  human  progress  and  the  indefinite  perfectibility  of  man. 

At  the  time  when  those  Eastern  and  Southern  nations  flour- 
ished, the  sons  of  Japhet  had  not  yet  taken  a  place  in  history. 
Silently  and  unnoticed  they  wandered  from  the  cradle  of  man- 
kind ;  and,  if  Scripture  had  not  recorded  their  names,  we  should 
be  at  a  loss  to-day  to  reach  back  to  the  origin  of  European  na- 
tions. Yet  were  they  destined,  according  to  prophecy,  to  be  the 
future  rulers  of  the  world ;  and  their  education  for  that  high 
destiny  was  a  rude  and  painful  one,  receiving  as  they  did  for  their 
share  of  the  globe  its  roughest  portion  :  an  uninterrupted  forest 
covering  all  their  domain  from  the  central  plateau  which  they 
had  left  to  the  shores  of  the  northern  and  western  oeean,  their 
utmost  limit.  Many  branches  of  that  bold  race — audax  Japeti 
genus — fell  into  a  state  of  barbarism,  but  a  barbarism  verydifier- 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


41 


ent  from  that  of  the  tribes  of  Oriental  or  Southern  origin.  With 
them  degradation  was  not  final,  as  it  seems  to  have  been  with 
some  branches  at  least  of  the  other  stems.  They  wrere  always 
reclaimable,  always  apt  to  receive  education,  and,  after  having 
existed  for  centuries  in  an  almost  savage  state,  they  were  capable 
of  once  more  attaining  the  highest  civilization.  This  the  Scan- 
dinavian and  German  tribes  have  satisfactorily  demonstrated. 

It  may  even  be  said  that  all  the  branches  of  the  stock  of 
Japhet  first  fell  from  their  original  elevation  and  passed  through 
real  barbarism,  to  rise  again  by  their  own  efforts  and  occupy  a 
prominent  position  on  the  stage  of  history ;  and  this  fact  has, 
no  doubt,  given  rise  to  the  fable  of  the  primitive  savage  state  of 
all  men. 

That  the  theory  is  false  is  proved  at  once  by  the  sudden 
emergence  of  all  Eastern  nations  into  splendor  and  strength  with- 
out ever  having  had  barbarous  ancestors.  But,  when  they  fall, 
it  seems  to  be  forever;  and  it  looks  at  least  problematical 
whether  Western  intercourse,  and  even  the  intermixture  of  West- 
ern blood,  can  reinvigorate  the  apathetic  races  of  Asia.  As  to 
their  rising  of  their  own  accord  and  assuming  once  again  the  lead 
of  the  world,  no  one  can  for  a  moment  give  a  second  thought  to 
the  realization  of  such  a  dream. 

But  how  and  when  did  the  races  of  Japhet  appear  first  in 
history  ?  How  and  when  did  the  Eastern  races  begin  to  fall  be- 
hind their  younger  brethren  ? 

A  great  deal  has  been  written,  and  with  a  vast  amount  of 
dogmatism,  concerning  the  Pelasgians  and  their  colonizations 
and  conquests  on  the  shore  and  over  the  islands  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea.  But  nothing  can  be  proved  with  certainty  in  regard 
to  their  origin  and  manners,  their  rise  and  fall.  In  fact,  Eu- 
ropean history  begins  with  that  of  Greece  ;  and  the  struggle  be- 
tween Hellas  and  Persia  is  at  once  the  brilliant  introduction  of 
the  sons  of  Japhet  on  the  stage  of  the  world — the  Trojan  AYar 
being  more  than  half  fabulous. 

The  campaigns  of  Alexander  established  the  supremacy  of 
the  West ;  and  from  that  epoch  the  Oriental  races  begin  to  fall 
into  that  profound  slumber  wherein  they  still  lie  buried,  and 
which  the  brilliant  activity  of  the  Saracens  and  Moslems  broke 
for  a  time — now,  we  must  hope,  passed  away  forever. 

The  downfall  of  the  far  Orient  was  not,  however,  contempo- 
raneous with  the  supremacy  of  Greece  over  the  East.  The  great 
peninsula  of  India  was  still  to  show  for  many  ages  an  astonishing 
activity  under  the  successive  sway  of  the  llindoos,  the  Patens, 
the  Moguls,  and  the  Sikhs.  China  also  was  to  continue  for  a 
long  time  an  immense  and  prosperous  empire  ;  but  the  existence 
of  both  these  countries  was  concentrated  in  themselves,  so  that 
the  rest  of  the  world  felt  no  result  from  their  internal  agitations. 


42 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


Life  was  gradually  ebbing  away  in  the  great  Mongolian  family, 
and  the  silent  beatings  of  the  pulse  that  indicated  the  slow  freez- 
ing of  their  blood  could  neither  be  heard  nor  felt  beyond  their 
own  territorial  limits. 

Nothing  new  in  literature  and  the  arts  is  visible  among  them 
after  the  appearance,  on  their  western  frontiers,  of  the  sons  of 
Japhet,  led  by  the  Macedonian  hero.  It  now  seems  established 
that  Sanscrit  literature,  the  only,  but  really  surprising  proof  of 
intellectual  life  in  Hindostan,  is  anterior  to  that  epoch. 

As  to  China,  the  great  discoveries  which  in  the  hands  of  the 
European  races  have  led  to  such  wonderful  results,  the  mariner's 
compass,  the  printing-press,  gunpowder,  paper,  bank-notes,  re- 
mained for  the  Chinese  mere  toys  or  without  further  improve- 
ments after  their  first  discovery.  It  is  not  known  when  those 
great  inventions  first  appeared  among  them.  They  had  been  in 
operation  for  ages  before  Marco  Polo  saw  them  in  use,  and  scarcely 
understood  them  himself.  Europeans  were  at  that  time  so  little 
prepared  for  the  reception  of  those  material  instruments  of  civil- 
ization, that  the  publication  of  his  travels  only  produced  incre- 
dulity with  regard  to  those  mighty  engines  of  good  or  evil. 

But  those  very  proofs  of  Oriental  ingenuity  establish  the  fact 
of  a  point  of  suspension  in  mental  activity  among  the  nations 
which  discovered  them.  Its  exact  date  is  unknown ;  but  every 
thing  tends  to  prove  that  it  took  place  long  ages  ago,  and  nothing 
is  so  well  calculated  to  bring  home  to  our  minds  the  great  fact 
which  we  are  now  trying  to  establish  as  the  simple  mention 
of  the  two  following  phenomena  in  the  life  of  the  most  remote 
Eastern  nations  : 

The  genius  of  the  East  was  at  one  time  able  to  produce  liter- 
ary works  of  a  philosophical  and  poetical  character  unsurpassed 
by  those  of  any  other  nation.  The  most  learned  men  of  modern 
times  in  Europe,  when  they  are  in  the  position  to  become  prac- 
tically acquainted  with  them,  and  peruse  them  in  their  original 
dialects,  can  scarcely  find  words  to  express  their  astonishment,  in- 
timately conversant  as  they  are  with  the  masterpieces  of  Greece 
and  Home  and  of  the  most  polite  Christian  nations.  They  find 
in  Sanscrit  poems  and  religious  books  models  of  every  descrip- 
tion ;  but  they  chiefly  find  in  them  an  abundance,  a  freshness,  a 
mental  energy,  which  fill  them  with  wonder  ;  yet  all  those  high 
intellectual  endowments  have  disappeared  ages  ago,  no  one  knows 
how  nor  precisely  when.  It  is  clear  that  the  nation  which  pro- 
duced them  has  fallen  into  a  kind  of  unconscious  stupor,  which 
has  been  its  mental  condition  ever  since,  and  which  to-day  raises 
miny  Europe  to  the  stature  of  a  giant  before  the  fallen  colossus. 

Again :  many  ages  ago  the  Mongolian  family  in  China  in- 
vented many  material  processes  which  have  been  mainly  the 
^ause  of  the  rise  of  Europe  in  our  days.    They  were  really  the 


TEE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


43 


invention  of  the  Chinese,  who  neither  received  them  from  nor 
communicated  them  to  any  other  nation.  Ages  ago  they  became 
known  to  us  accidentally  through  their  instrumentality;  but, 
as  we  were  not  at  that  time  prepared  for  the  adoption  of  such 
useful  discoveries,  their  mention  in  a  book  then  read  all  over 
Europe  excited  only  ridicule  and  unbelief.  As  soon  as  the  West- 
ern mind  mastered  them  of  itself,  they  became  straightway  of 
immense  importance,  and  gave  rise,  we  may  say,  to  all  that  we 
call  modern  civilization.  But  in  the  hands  of  the  Chinese  they 
remained  useless  and  unproductive,  as  they  are  to  this  day,  al- 
though they  may  now  see  what  we  have  done  with  them.  Their 
mind,  therefore,  once  active  enough  to  invent  mighty  instru- 
ments of  material  progress,  long  ago  became  perfectly  incapable 
of  improving  on  its  own  invention,  so  that  European  vessels  con- 
vey to  their  astonished  sight  what  was  originally  theirs,  but  so 
improved  and  altered  as  to  render  the  original  utterly  contempt- 
ible and  ridiculous.  And,  what  is  stranger  still,  though  they 
can  compare  their  own  rude  implements  with  ours,  and  possess 
a  most  acute  mind  in  what  is  materially  useful,  they  cannot  be 
brought  to  confess  Western  superiority.  The  advantage  which 
they  really  possessed  over  us  a  thousand  years  ago  is  still  a  reality 
to  their  blind  pride. 

But  it  is  time  to  return  to  the  epoch  when  the  race  of  Japhet 
began  to  put  forth  its  power. 

Roman  intellectual  and  physical  vigor  was  the  first  great 
force  which  gave  Europe  that  preeminence  she  has  never  since 
lost ;  and  there  was  a  moment  in  history  when  it  seemed  likely 
that  a  nation,  or  a  city  rather,  was  on  the  point  of  realizing  the 
prophetic  promise  made  to  the  sons  of  Noah. 

But  an  idolatrous  nation  could  not  receive  that  boon;,  and 
the  Roman  sway  affected  very  slightly  the  African  and  Asiatic 
nations,  whatever  its  pretensions  may  have  been. 

For,  when  Rome  had  subdued  what  she  called  Europe,  Asia, 
and  Africa — the  whole  globe — whenever  she  found  that  her  em- 
pire did  not  reach  the  sea,  she  established  there  posts  of  armed 
men  ;  colonies  were  sent  out  and  legions  distributed  along  the 
line ;  even  in  some  places,  as  in  Britain,  walls  were  constructed, 
stretching  across  islands,  if  not  along  continents.  Whatever 
country  had  the  happiness  of  being  included  between  those 
limits  belonged  to  "  the  city  and  the  world  " — urbi  et  orbi ;  be- 
yond was  Cimmerian  darkness  in  the  North,  or  burning  deserts 
m  the  South.  Mankind  had  no  right  to  exist  outside  of  her 
sway ;  and,  if  some  roaming  barbarians  strayed  over  the  inhos- 
pitable confines,  they  could  not  complain  at  having  their  exist- 
ence swept  off  from  the  field  of  history,  so  unworthy  were  they 
of  the  name  of  men.  Science  itself,  the  science  of  those  times, 
had  to  admit  such  ideas  and  dictate  them  to  polished  writers. 


44 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


Hence,  according  to  the  greatest  geographers,  mankind  could 
exist  neither  in  tropical  nor  in  arctic  regions  ;  and  Strabo,  divid- 
ing the  globe  into  five  zones,  declared  that  only  two  of  them 
were  habitable. 

We  now  know  how  false  were  those  assertions,  and  indeed  how 
circumscribed  was  the  power  of  ancient  Eome.  She  pretended 
to  universal  as  well  as  to  eternal  dominion ;  but  she  deceived 
herself  in  both  cases.  Under  her  sway  the  races  of  Japhet  were 
not  "  to  dwell  in  the  tents  of  Sem."  She  was  not  worthy  of 
accomplishing  the  great  prophecy  which  is  now  under  our  con- 
sideration. 

It  is,  however,  undoubtedly  due  to  her  that  the  children  of 
Japhet  became  the  dominant  race  of  the  globe,  and  the  Eastern 
nations,  once  so  active  and  so  powerful,  were  overshadowed  by 
her  glory,  and  had  already  fallen  into  that  slumber  which  seems 
eternal. 

Egypt  was  reduced  so  low  that  a  victorious  Roman  general 
had  only  to  appear  on  her  borders  to  insure  immediate  submission. 

Syria  and  Mesopotamia  were  fast  becoming  the  frightful  des- 
erts they  are  to-day.  Persia  dared  not  move  in  the  awful  pres- 
ence of  a  few  legions  scattered  along  the  Tigris  ;  and,  if,  later  on, 
the  Parthian  kings  made  a  successful  resistance  against  Pome,  it 
was  only  owing  to  the  abominable  corruption  of  Poman  society 
at  the  time  ;  but,  in  fact,  Iran  had  fallen  to  rise  no  more,  save 
spasmodically  under  Mohammedan  rule. 

The  fact  is,  that,  in  the  subsequent  flood  of  barbarians  which 
for  centuries  overwhelmed  and  destroyed  the  whole  of  Europe, 
we  behold,  on  all  sides,  streams  of  Northern  European  races, 
members  of  the  same  family  of  Japhet.  It  was  the  Goths  that 
ruined  Palestine  even  in  the  time  of  St.  Jerome.  If  side  by  side 
with  Northern  nations  the  Huns  appeared,  no  one  knows  pre- 
cisely whence  they  came.  Attila  called  himself  King  of  the 
Scythians  and  the  Goths,  as  well  as  grandson  of  Nimrod.  He 
came  with  his  mighty  hosts  from  beyond  the  Danube ;  this  is  all 
that  can  be  said  with  certainty  of  his  origin. 

The  East,  therefore,  was  already  dead,  and  could  furnish  no 
powerful  foe  against  that  Pome  which  it  detested.  It  is  even  in 
this  Oriental  supineness  that  we  can  find  a  reason  for  the  dura- 
tion of  the  inglorious  empire  of  Constantinople.  Pome  and  the 
"West,  though  far  more  vigorous,  were  overwhelmed  by  barbari- 
ans of  the  same  original  stock  sent  by  Providence  to  "  renew  its 


tinued  for  a  thousand  years  longer  to  drag  out  their  feeble  exist- 
ence, because  the  far  Orient  could  not  send  a  few  of  its  tribes  to 
touch  their  walls  and  cause  them  to  crumble  into  dust.  It  is 
even  remaikable  that  the  armies  of  Mohammed  and  his  succes- 
sors, in  the  flush  of  their  new  fanaticism,  did  not  dare  for  a  long 


Constantinople  and  the  East  con- 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


45 


time  to  attack  the  race  of  Japhet  settled  on  the  Bosporus.  From 
their  native  Arabia  they  easily  overran  Egypt  and  Northern 
Africa,  Syria  and  Palestine,  Mesopotamia  and  Persia.  But  Asia 
Minor  and  Thrace  remained  for  centuries  proof  against  their 
fury,  and,  whenever  their  fleets  appeared  in  the  Bosporus,  they 
were  easily  defeated  by  the  unworthy  successors  of  Constantine 
and  Theodosius.  This  fact,  which  has  not  been  sufficiently  no- 
ticed, shows  conclusively  that  the  energy  imparted  by  Monam- 
rriedanism  to  Oriental  nations  would  nave  lasted  but  a  short 
time,  and  encountered  in  the  West  a  successful  resistance,  had 
not  the  Turks  appeared  on  the  scene,  destroyed  the  Saracen 
dynasties,  and,  by  infusing  the  blood  of  Central  Asia  into  the 
veins  of  Eastern  and  Southern  fanatics,  prolonged  for  so  many 
ages  the  sway  of  the  Crescent  over  a  large  portion  of  the  globe. 

This  was  the  turning-point  in  human  affairs  between  the 
East  and  the  West.  We  do  not  write  history,  and  cannot,  con- 
sequently, enter  into  details.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  a  new 
element,  strengthened  by  a  long  struggle  with  Moslemism,  was 
to  give  to  the  West  a  lasting  preponderance  which  ancient  Pome 
could  not  possess,  and  whose  developments  we  see  in  our  days. 
This  new  element  was  the  Christian  religion,  solidly  established 
on  the  ruins  of  idolatry  and  heresy ;  far  more  solidly  established, 
consequently,  than  under  the  Christian  emperors  of  Rome, 
while  paganism  still  existed  in  the  capital  itself. 

The  Christian  religion,  which  was  to  make  one  society  of  all 
the  children  of  Adam  ;  which,  at  its  birth,  took  the  name  of  uni- 
versal or  catholic  (whereas  previously  all  religions  had  been 
merely  national,  and  therefore  very  limited  in  their  effects  upon 
mankind  at  large) ;  which  alone  wras  destined  to  establish  and 
maintain,  through  all  ages,  spite  of  innumerable  obstacles,  a  real 
universal  sway  over  all  nations  and  tribes — the  Christian  religion 
alone  could  give  one  race  preponderance  over  others  until  all 
should  become,  as  it  were,  merged  into  one. 

At  first  it  seemed  that  Providence  destined  that  high  calling 
for  the  Semitic  branch  of  the  human  family.  The  Hebrew  peo- 
ple, trained  by  God  himself,  through  so  many  ages,  for  the  high- 
est purposes,  finally  gave  birth  to  the  great  Leader  wTho,  by 
redeeming  all  men,  was  to  gather  them  all  into  one  family. 
This  Leader,  our  divine  Lord,  himself  a  Hebrew,  chose  twelve 
men  of  the  same  nation  to  be  the  founders  of  the  great  edifice. 
We  know  how  the  divine  plan  was  frustrated  by  the  stubbornness 
of  the  Jews,  who  rejected  the  corner-stone  of  the  building,  to  be 
themselves  dashed  against  its  walls  and  destroyed.  The  sons  of 
Japhet  were  substituted  for  the  sons  of  Sem,  Europe  for  Asia, 
Pome  for  Jerusalem  ;  and  the  real  commencement  of  the  lasting 
preponderance  of  the  West  dates  from  the  establishment  of  the 
Christian  Church  in  Pome. 


46 


TIIE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


See  how,  from  Christianity,  the  Caucasian  race,  as  we  call  it, 
came  to  be  the  rulers  of  the  world.  A  mighty  revolution, 
wherein  all  the  branches  of  that  great  race  become  intermingled 
and  confused,  sweeps  over  the  Koman  Empire.  Every  thing 
seems  destroyed  by  the  onset  of  the  barbarians,  in  order  that 
they,  by  receiving  the  only  true  religion  which  they  found  with- 
out seeking  among  those  whom  they  conquered,  might  become 
worthy  of  fulfilling  the  designs  of  Providence.  All  the  barriers 
are  overthrown  that  one  institution,  called  Christendom,  may 
take  form  and  harmony.  There  are  to  be  no  more  Romans,  nor 
Gauls,  nor  Iberians,  nor  Germans,  nor  Scandinavians — only 
Christians.  It  is  a  renewed  and  reinvigorated  race  of  Japhet, 
imbued  with  true  doctrine,  clothed  with  solid  virtues,  animated 
with  an  overwhelming  energy.  It  is  a  colossal  statue,  moulded 
by  popes,  chiselled  by  bishops,  set  on  its  feet  by  Christian  em- 
perors and  kings,  chiefly  by  Charlemagne,  Alfred,  Louis  IX., 
and  Otho.  Is  there  not  perfect  unity  between  those  great  men 
divided  by  such  intervals  of  space  and  time  ?  Is  not  their  work 
a  universal  republic,  whose  foundations  they  laid  with  their  own 
hands  ? 

The  rest  of  the  world,  still  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  foolish 
idols,  or  carried  away  by  human  errors  and  delusions,  sinks 
deeper  and  deeper  into  apathy  and  corruption,  while  Europe  is 
reserved  for  mighty  purposes  in  centuries  to  come.  A  stream  is 
gathering  in  the  West,  which  is  destined  to  sweep  down  and 
bear  away  all  obstacles,  and  to  cover  every  continent  with  its 
regenerating  waters. 

That  stream  is  modern  European  history.  It  has  been  re- 
corded in  thousands  of  volumes,  many  of  which,  however,  are 
totally  unreliable  fables  of  those  mighty  events.  Those  only 
have  had  the  key  to  its  right  interpretation  who  have  followed 
the  Christian  light  given  from  above,  as  a  star,  to  guide  the  won- 
derful giant  in  his  course.  The  chief  among  them  were :  of  old, 
Augustine,  the  author  of  the  "  City  of  God  ;  "  Orosius,  the  first 
to  condense  the  annals  of  the  world  into  the  formula,  "  divvnd 
providentid  regitur  mundus  et  homo  /  "  Otho  of  Freysinguen, 
in  his  work  " De  mutatione  rerum"  and  the  author  of  "  Gesta 
Dei  per  Francos  in  modern  times,  Bossuet  and  his  follow- 
ers. 

The  destruction  of  idolatry  was  of  such  vital  importance  in 
the  regeneration  of  the  world  that  it  sufficed  as  a  dogma  to  im- 
bue a  great  branch  of  the  Semitic  family  with  a  strong  life  for 
several  centuries.  Moslemism  has  no  other  truth  to  support  it 
than  the  assertion  of  God's  unity;  but,  by  waging  war  against 
the  Trinity  and,  consequently,  against  the  very  foundation  of 
Christian  belief,  it  became,  for  a  long  time,  the  greatest  obstacle 
to  the  dissemination  of  truth.    It  prevented  the  early  triumph 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


47 


of  the  Caucasian  race,  and  galvanized,  for  a  time,  the  nations  of 
the  East  and  South  into  a  false  life. 

The  ravages  of  the  Tartar  hordes  under  Genghis  Khan  and 
his  successors  were  in  no  sense  life,  but  only  a  fitful  madness. 

The  European  stream  was  thus  impeded  in  its  flood  by  the 
new  activity  of  Arabia  and  Turkomania.  It  was  a  struggle  in 
which  victory,  for  a  long  time,  hung  in  the  balance  :  it  required 
many  crusades  of  the  whole  of  Western  Europe ;  the  long  hero- 
ism of  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  nations ;  the  incessant  attack 
and  defence  of  the  Templars  and  the  Knights  of  Malta  over  the 
whole  surface  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  to  secure  the  prepon- 
derance of  the  West.  It  was  finally  decided  at  Lepanto.  Since 
that  great  day,  Mohammedanism  has  gradually  declined,  and 
there  now  seems  no  insurmountable  obstacle  to  the  free  flowing 
of  the  European  stream. 

This  stream,  however,  is  not  homogeneous :  far  from  it. 
Had  the  Christian  element  always  remained  alone  in  it,  or  at 
least  supreme,  long  ere  this  the  victory  would  have  been  secure 
forever,  and  the  Catholic  missions  alone  would  have  fulfilled  the 
old  prophecies  and  given  to  the  sons  of  Japhet  possession  of  the 
tents  of  Sem — a  glorious  work  so  well  begun  in  the  East,  in 
India  and  Japan  ;  in  the  West,  in  the  whole  of  America  ! 

But,  unfortunately,  the  policy  of  the  papacy,  which  was  also 
that  of  Charlemagne,  and  of  other  great  Christian  sovereigns,  was 
not  continued.  The  Gorman  feudalism  of  England  and  North- 
ern France ;  the  Caesarism  of  Germany  and  the  Capetian  kings ; 
the  heresies  brought  from  the  East  by  the  Crusaders ;  the  pagan- 
ism and  neo-Platonism  of  the  revival  of  learning  ;  above  all,  the 
fearful  upheaval  of  the  whole  of  Europe  by  the  Protestant  schism 
and  heresy,  troubled  the  purity  of  that  great  Japhetic  stream, 
and  has  retarded  to  our  days  its  momentous  and  overwhelming 
impetuosity. 

Wonderful,  indeed,  that  in  the  whole  of  Europe  one  small 
island  alone  was  forever  stubbornly  opposed  to  all  these  aberra- 
tions, which  has  stood  her  ground  firmly,  and,  we  may  now  say, 
successfully.  The  reader  already  knows  that  the  demonstration 
of  this  stupendous  fact  is  the  object  of  the  present  volume. 

Having  stood  aloof  so  long  from  all  those  wanderings  from 
the  right  path,  she  has  scarcely  appeared  in  the  field  of  European 
historv  save  as  the  victim  of  Scandinavia  and  of  England.  But 
there  is  a  time  in  the  series  of  ages  for  the  appearance  of  all 
those  called  by  Providence  to  enact  a  part.  What  is  a  myriad 
of  years  for  man  is  not  a  moment  for  God  ;  and  it  would  seem 
that  we  had  reached  at  last  the  epoch  wherein  Ireland  is  to  be 
rewarded  for  her  steadfastness  and  fidelity. 

The  impetus  now  imparted  to  European  power  becomes  each 
day  more  clearly  defined,  and,  to  judge  by  recent  appearances, 


48 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUEOPE. 


ishmen  are  about  to  play  no  inglorious  part  in  it.    The  power 

of  expansion,  so  characteristic  of  them  from  the  beginning,  has 
of  late  years  assumed  gigantic  proportions.  The  very  hatred  of 
their  enemies,  the  measures  adopted  by  their  oppressors  to  anni- 
hilate them,  have  only  served  to  give  them  a  larger  field  of 
operations  and  a  much  stronger  force.  It  is  not  without  pur- 
pose that  God  has  spread  them  in  such  numbers  over  so  many 
different  islands  and  continents.  It  is  theirs  to  give  to  the 
spread  of  Japhetism  among  the  sons  of  Sem  its  right  direction 
and  results.  The  other  races  of  Western  Europe  would,  had 
they  been  left  to  themselves  alone,  have  converted  that  great 
event  into  a  curse  for  mankind,  and  perhaps  the  forerunner  of 
the  last  calamities ;  but  the  Irish,  having  kept  themselves  pure, 
are  the  true  instruments  in  the  hands  of  God  for  righting  what 
is  wrong  and  purifying  what  is  corrupt. 

Had  Europe  remained  in  its  entirety  as  steadfast  to  the  true 
Christian  spirit  as  the  small  island  which  dots  the  sea  on  its 
western  border,  what  an  incalculable  happiness  it  would  have 
proved  to  the  whole  globe,  resting  as  it  does  to-day  under  the 
lead  of  the  race  of  Japhet ! 

But  where  now  are  the  pure  waters  which  should  vivify  and 
fertilize  it  ?  Innumerable  elements  are  floating  in  their  midst 
which  can  but  destroy  life  and  spread  barrenness  everywhere. 

Let  us  see  what  Europeans  believe ;  what  are  the  motives 
which  actuate  them  ;  what  they  propose  to  themselves  in  dis- 
seminating their  influence  and  establishing  their  dominion  ;  what 
the  real,  openly-avowed  purposes  of  the  leaders  are  in  the  vast 
scheme  which  embraces  the  whole  earth ;  what  becomes  of  for- 
eign races  as  soon  as  they  come  in  contact  with  them. 

The  bare  idea  causes  the  blood  of  the  Christian  to  curdle  in 
his  veins,  and  he  thanks  God  that  his  life  shall  not  be  pro- 
longed to  witness  the  successful  termination  of  the  vast  con- 
spiracy against  God  and  humanity. 

For,  in  our  days,  spite  of  so  many  deviations  in  the  course  of 
the  great  European  stream,  it  is  truly  a  matter  of  wonder  what 
power  it  has  obtained  over  the  globe  in  its  mastery,  its  control, 
its  unification.  What,  then,  would  have  been  the  result  had  its 
course  remained  constantly  under  Christian  guidance  ! 

It  is  only  a  short  time  since  the  whole  earth  has  become 
known  to  us ;  and  we  may  say  that,  for  Europe,  it  has  been 
enough  only  to  know  it  in  order  to  become  at  once  the  mistress 
of  it ;  such  power  has  the  Christian  religion  given  her  !  The  first 
circumnavigation  of  the  globe  under  Magellan  took  place  but 
yesterday,  and  to-day  European  ships  cover  the  oceans  and  seas 
of  the  world,  bearing  in  every  sail  the  breath  and  the  spirit  of 
Japhetism.  The  stubborn  ice-fields  of  the  pole  can  scarcely  re- 
tard their  course,  and  hardy  navigators  and  adventurous  travel- 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


49 


lers  jeopardize  their  lives  in  the  pursuit  of  merely  theoretical 
notions,  void  almost  of  any  practical  utility. 

The  most  remote  and,  up  to  recently,  inaccessible  parts  of  the 
earth  are  as  open  to  us,  owing  to  steam,  as  were  the  countries 
bordering  on  the  Mediterranean  to  the  ancients.  The  Argo- 
nautic  expedition  along  the  southern  coast  of  the  Black  Sea  was 
in  its  day  an  heroic  undertaking.  The  Phoenician  colonies  estab- 
lished in  Africa  and  Spain  by  a  race  trying  for  the  first  time  in 
the  history  of  man  to  launch  their  ships  on  the  ocean  in  order 
to  trade  with  Northern  tribes  as  far  as  Ireland  and  the  Baltic, 
though  never  losing  sight  of  the  coast ;  the  attempts  of  the  Car- 
thaginians to  circumnavigate  Africa  ;  the  three  years'  voyages 
of  the  ships  of  Solomon  in  the  Red  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf, 
were  one  and  all  far  more  hazardous  undertakings  than  the  long 
voyages  of  our  steamships  across  the  Indian  Ocean  to  Australia, 
or  around  Cape  Horn  to  California  and  the  South  Sea  Islands, 
through  the  Southern  and  Northern  Pacifies. 

From  all  large  seaboard  cities  in  any  part  of  the  globe,  lines 
of  steamers  now  bear  men  to  every  point  of  the  compass,  so  that 
the  very  boards  at  the  entrances  of  offices,  to  be  found  every- 
where for  the  accommodation  of  travellers,  are  as  indices  of  works 
on  universal  geography. 

And  the  European,  .still  unsatisfied  with  all  he  has  achieved 
in  speed  and  comfort,  looks  to  moTe1  rapid.  Uud  uusiei  mo  des  of 
conveyance.  Scientific  men  have  been  fot  many  yuars  engaged 
ill  Experiments  by  means  of  which  they  hope  to  replace  the  ocean 
by  the  atmosphere  as  a  public  highway  for  nations  ;  and  the  cur- 
rents of  air  rushing  in  eveiy  direction  with  the  velocity  of  the 
most  rapid  winds  may  yet  be  used  by  our  children  instead  of  riv- 
ers, thenceforth  deserted,  and  of  ocean-streams  at  last  left  empty 
and  waste  as  before  the  voyages  of  Columbus  and  De  Gama. 

All  this  constitutes  a  positive  and  stern  fact  staring  us  in  the 
face,  and  giving  to  the  Caucasian  race  a  power  of  which  our  an- 
cestors would  never  have  dreamed.  And  if  all  this  is  to  be  the 
only  result  of  man's  activity — the  attainment  of  merely  worldly 
purposes — God,  whose  world  this  is,  may  look  down  on  it  from 
heaven  as  on  the  work  of  Titans  preparing  to  attack  his  rights, 
and  He  will  know  how  to  turn  all  these  mighty  efforts  of  the 
sons  of  Japhet  to  his  own  holy  designs.  He  may  use  a  small 
branch  of  that  great  race,  preserved  purposely  from  the  begin- 
ning unsullied  by  mere  thrift,  and  prepared  for  his  work  by  long 
persecution,  a  consideration  which  we  shall  examine  later  on. 

Meanwhile  the  great  mass  of  the  European  family  is  allowed 
to  go  on  in  its  wonderful  undertaking ;  and  we  turn  to  it  yet  a 
6hort  while. 

As  if  to  favor  still  more  directly  this  work  of  the  unification 
of  the  globe,  Providence  has  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  prime 
4 


50 


TIIE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


movers  m  the  enterprise  pecuniary  means  which  no  one  could 
have  foreseen  a  few  years  ago. 

In  1846,  on  a  small  branch  of  one  of  the  great  rivers  of  Cali- 
fornia, a  colonist  discovers  gold  carried  as  dust  with  the  sand, 
and  soon  a  great  part  of  the  country  is  found  to  be  immensely 
rich  in  the  precious  metal.  That  first  discovery  is  followed  by 
others  equally  important,  and  after  a  few  years  gold  is  found  in 
abundance  on  both  sides  of  a  long  range  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains ;  again  in  the  north,  nearly  as  high  up  as  the  arctic  circle. 
North  America,  in  fact,  is  found  to  be  a  vast  gold  deposit.  Aus- 
tralia soon  follows,  and  that  new  continent,  whose  exploration 
has  scarcely  begun,  is  said  to  be  dotted  all  over  by  large  oases  of 
auriferous  rock  and  gravel.  In  due  time  the  same  news  comes 
from  South  Africa,  where  it  has  been  lately  reported  that  dia- 
monds, in  addition  to  gold,  enrich  the  explorer  and  the  work- 
man. 

It  is  needless  to  speak  of  mines  of  silver  and  mercury  after 
gold  and  diamonds  ;  but  the  result  is  that  the  European  race  is 
straightway  provided  with  an  enormous  wealth  commensurate 
with  the  immense  commercial  and  manufacturing  enterprises 
required  for  the  establishment  of  its  supremacy  all  over  the  globe. 

There  is  work,  therefore,  for  all  the  ships  afloat ;  others  and 
larger  ones  have  to  be  constructed;  and  modern  engineering 
skill  places  on  the  bosom  of  the  deep  sea  vessels  which  few,  in- 
deed, of  the  greatest  rivers  can  accommodate  in  their  channels 
and  bays. 

All  these  means  of  dominion  and  dissemination  once  pro- 
cured, the  great  work  clearly  assigned  to  the  race  of  Japhet  may 
proceed. 

Intercourse  with  the  most  savage  and  uncivilized  tribes  is 
eagerly  cultivated  even  at  the  risk  of  life.  New  avenues  to  trade 
are  opened  up  in  places  where  men,  still  living  in  the  most  primi- 
tive state,  have  few  if  any  wants ;  and  it  is  considered  as  part  of 
the  keen  merchant's  skill  to  fill  the  minds  of  these  uncouth  and 
unsophisticated  barbarians  with  the  desire  of  every  possible  lux- 
ury. Have  we  not  lately  heard  that  the  savages  of  the  Feejee 
Islands,  who  were  a  few  years  ago  cannibals,  have  now  a  king 
seeking  the  protection  of  England,  if  not  the  annexation  of  his 
kingdom  to  the  British  empire? 

i  es,  the  material  civilization  of  Europe,  the  new  discoveries 
of  steam  and  magnetism,  the  untiring  energy  of  men  aiming  at 
universal  dominion,  give  to  the  Caucasian  race  such  a  superiority 
over  the  rest  of  mankind  that  the  time  seems  to  be  fast  ap- 
proaching when  the  manners,  the  dress,  the  look  even  of  Euro- 
peans, will  supersede  all  other  types,  and  spread  everywhere  the 
dead  level  of  our  habits. 

This  fact  has  already  been  realized  in  America,  North  and 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUEOPE. 


51 


South.  Geographers  may  give  lengthened  descriptions  of  the 
original  tribes  which  still  possess  a  shadow  of  existence ;  foreign 
readers  may  perhaps  imagine  that  the  continent  is  still  in  the 
quiet  possession  of  rude  and  uncivilized  races  roaming  at  will 
over  its  surface,  and  allowing  some  Europeans  to  occupy  certain 
cities  and  harbors  for  the  purposes  of  trade  and  barter.  "We 
know  that  nothing  could  be  more  erroneous.  The  Europeans 
are  the  real  possessors,  north  and  south ;  the  Indians  are  per- 
mitted to  exist  on  a  few  spots  contracting  year  by  year  into  nar- 
rower limits.  The  northern  and  larger  half  of  the  continent  is 
chiefly  the  dwelling-place  of  the  most  active  branch  of  the  bold 
race  of  Japhet.  The  first  of  the  iron  lines  which  are  to  connect 
its  Atlantic  and  Pacific  coasts  has  recently  been  laid.  Cities 
spring  up  all  along  its  track :  the  harbors  of  California,  Oregon, 
and  Alaska,  will  soon  swarm  much  more  than  now  with  hardy 
navigators  ready  to  europeanize  the  various  groups  of  islands 
scattered  over  the  Pacific.  Already  in  the  Sandwich  and  Tahiti 
groups  the  number  of  Europeans  is  greatly  in  excess  of  that  of 
the  natives.  Those  natives  who,  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  have 
been  preserved  by  the  Catholic  Church,  will  too  soon  disappear 
from  the  surface  of  the  largest  ocean  of  the  globe. 

Then  Eastern  Asia  will  be  attacked  much  more  seriouslv 
than  ever  before.  Since  its  discovery,  Europeans  could  only 
reach  it  through  the  long  distances  which  divide  Western  Europe 
from  China  and  Japan.  But  within  a  short  time  numerous  lines 
of  steamships,  starting  from  San  Francisco,  Portland,  Honolulu, 
and  many  other  harbors  yet  nameless,  will  land  travellers  in 
Yokohama,  Hakodadi,  Yeddo,  Shanghai,  Canton,  and  other  em- 
poriums of  Asia. 

Nor  will  the  Americans  of  the  United  States  be  alone  in  the 
race.  Several  governments  are  preparing  to  cut  a  canal  through 
the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  or  Darien,  or  Tehuantepec,  as  has 
already  been  done  with  that  of  Suez ;  and  soon  ships  starting 
from  Western  Europe  will,  with  the  aid  of  steam,  traverse  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  Oceans  successively  as  two  large  lakes  to 
land  their  passengers  and  cargoes  on  the  frontiers  of  China  and 
India. 

The  Japanese,  those  Englishmen  of  the  East,  are  ready  to 
adopt  European  inventions.  They  are  indeed  already  expert  in 
many  of  them,  and  seem  on  the  alert  to  conform  to  European 
manners.  It  is  said  that  the  nation  is  divided  intc  two  parties 
on  that  very  question  of  conformity ;  before  long  they  will  all  be 
of  one  mind.  What  an  impulse  will  thus  be  given  to  the  euro- 
peanization  of  China  and  Tartary ! 

In  Hindostan,  England  has  fairly  begun  the  work  ;  but  the 
climate  of  the  peninsula  offering  an  obstacle  to  the  introduction 
of  a  large  number  of  men  of  the  Caucasian  race,  it  will  be  more 


52 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


probably  from  the  foot  of  the  Himalaya  Mountains  that  the 
spread  of  the  race  will  commence.  Already  the  English  and  the 
Russians  are  concentrating  their  forces  on  the  Upper  Indus. 
The  question  merely  is,  Which  nation  will  be  the  first  to  inocu- 
late the  dreamy  sons  of  Sem  with  the  spirit  and  blood  of  Ja- 
phet  \  It  seems  that  Central  Asia  will  form  the  ral lying-ground 
for  the  last  efforts  of  the  Titans  to  unify  their  power,  as  it  was 
thence  that  the  power  of  God  first  dispersed  them. 

A  glance  at  the  rest  of  the  world  as  witnessing  the  same  as- 
tonishing spectacle,  and  we  pass  on.  Australia  is  clearly  des- 
tined to  be  entirely  European ;  the  number  of  natives,  already 
insignificant  compared  to  that  of  the  colonists,  will  soon  disap- 
pear utterly.  Turkey,  the  Caucasus,  Bokhara,  are  rapidly  tak- 
ing a  new  shape  and  adopting  Western  manners. 

The  African  triangle  offers  the  greatest  resistance,  owing  to 
its  deserts,  its  terrible  climate,  and  the  savage  or  childish  dispo- 
sition of  its  inhabitants.  Yet  the  attempt  to  europeanize  it  is 
at  this  moment  in  earnest  action  at  its  southernmost  cape,  all 
along  its  northern  line  skirting  the  Mediterranean,  in  Egypt 
chiefly,  and  also  through  the  Erythrean  Gulf  in  the  east ;  finally, 
on  many  points  of  its  western  shore,  which,  strange  to  say,  lags 
behind,  although  it  formed  the  first  point  of  discovery  by  the 
Portuguese. 

To  condense  all  we  have  just  said  to  a  few  lines  :  it  looks  as 
though  all  races  of  men,  except  the  Caucasian,  were  undergoing 
a  rapid  process  of  unification  or  disappearance. 

In  America  certainly  the  phenomenon  is  most  striking. 

In  Asia  all  the  native  races  seem  palsied  and  unable  to  hold 
together  in  the  presence  of  the  Russians  and  the  English. 

In  Africa,  Mohammedanism  still  preserves  to  the  natives  a 
certain  activity  of  life,  but  even  that  is  fast  on  the  wane. 

Finally,  in  Australia  and  the  Pacific  Ocean  the  disappearance 
of  the  natives  is  still  more  striking  and  more  sudden  in  its  action 
than  even  in  America. 

This  state  of  things  did  not  exist  two  hundred  years  ago ; 
and  when  the  Crusades  began  the  reverse  was  the  case. 

We  cannot  believe  that  this  immense,  universal  fact  is  merely 
an  exterior  one  resulting  from  new  appliances,  new  comforts, 
new  outward  habits ;  what  is  called  material  civilization.  We 
cannot  believe  that  it  is  merely  the  dress,  houses,  culinary  re- 
gime, the  popular  customs  of  those  numerous  foreign  tribes  or 
nations  which  are  undergoing  such  a  wonderful  change.  This 
outward  phenomenon  supposes  a  substratum,  an  interior  reality 
of  ideas  and  principles  worthy  our  chief  attention  as  the  real 
cause  of  all  those  exterior  changes ;  a  cause,  nevertheless,  which 
is  scarcely  thought  of  in  the  public  estimate  of  this  mighty  revo- 
lution. 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


53 


It  is  the  mind  of  Europe :  it  is  the  belief  or  want  of  belief, 
the  religious  or  irreligious  views,  the  grasping  ambition,  the 
headlong  desire  of  an  impossible  or  unholy  happiness,  the  reck- 
less sway  of  unbridled  passions,  which  try  to  spread  themselves 
among  all  nations,  and  bring  them  all  up,  or  rather  down,  to  the 
level  of  intoxicated,  tottering,  maddened  Europe. 

If  the  monstrous  scheme  succeeds,  there  will  be  no  more 
prayer  in  the  villages  of  the  devout  Maronites,  no  more  submis- 
sion to  God  in  the  mountains  of  Armenia,  no  more  simplicity  of 
faith  among  the  shepherds  of  Chaldea,  no  more  purity  of  life 
among  the  wandering  children  of  Asiatic  deserts. 

Side  by  side  with  truth  and  virtue  many  errors  and  mon 
strosities  will  doubtless  disappear,  but  not  to  be  replaced  with 
what  is  much  better. 

The  muezzin  of  the  mosques  will  no  longer  raise  his  voice 
from  the  minarets  at  noon  and  nightfall ;  the  simple  Lama  will 
no  longer  believe  in  the  successive  incarnations  of  Buddha ;  no 
longer  will  the  superstitious  Hindoo  cast  himself  beneath  the  car 
of  Juggernaut ;  many  another  such  absurdity  and  crime  will,  let 
us  hope,  disappear  forever.  But  with  what  benefit  to  mankind  ? 
After  all,  is  not  superstition  even  better  for  men  than  total  un- 
belief? And,  when  the  whole  world  is  reduced  to  the  state  of 
Europe,  when  what  we  daily  witness  there  shall  be  reproduced 
in  all  continents  and  islands,  will  men  really  be  more  virtuous 
and  happy  ? 

We  must  not  think,  however,  that  there  is  nothing  truly 
good  in  the  stupendous  transformation  which  we  have  endeav- 
ored to  sketch.  If  it  really  be  the  accomplishment  of  the  great 
prophecy  mentioned  by  us  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  it  is 
a  noble  and  a  glorious  event.  God  will  know  how  to  turn  it  to 
good  account,  and  it  is  for  us  to  hail  its  coming  with  thankful- 
ness. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  actual  superiority  of  the  race  of 
Japhet,  by  force  of  which  this  wonderful  revolution  is  being  ac- 
complished, is  the  result  of  Christianity,  that  is,  of  Catholicity. 
It  is  because  Europe,  or  the  agglomeration  of  the  various 
branches  of  the  race  of  Japhet,  was  for  fifteen  hundred  years 
overshadowed  by  the  true  temple  of  God,  his  glorious  and  in- 
fallible Church ;  it  is  because  the  education  of  Europeans  is 
mainly  due  to  the  true  messengers  of  God,  the  Popes  and  the 
bishops ;  it  is  because  the  mind  of  Europe  was  really  formed  by 
the  great  Catholic  thinkers,  nurtured  in  the  monasteries  and 
convents  of  the  Church ;  it  is,  finally,  because  Europeans  are 
truly  the  sons  of  martyrs  and  crusaders,  that  on  them  devolves 
the  great  mission  of  regenerating  and  blending  into  one  the 
whole  world. 

But,  unfortunately,  the  work  is  spoiled  by  adjuncts  in  the 


54 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


movement  which  have  grown  up  in  the  centuries  preceding  us. 
In  fact,  the  whole  European  movement  has  been  thrown  on  a 
wrong  track,  which  we  have  already  pointed  out  as  mere  mate- 
rial civilization. 

Still,  in  spite  of  all  the  dross,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  pure 
metal  in  the  Japhetic  movement.  Underlying  it  all  runs  the 
doctrine  that  all  men  are  sprung  from  the  same  father,  and  that 
all  have  had  the  same  Redeemer;  that,  consequently,  all  are 
brethren,  and  that  there  should  be  no  place  among  them  for 
castes  and  classes,  as  of  superior  and  inferior  beings ;  that  the 
God  the  Christians  adore  is  alone  omnipotent ;  that  idolatry  of 
all  kinds  ought  to  disappear,  and  that  ultimately  there  should  be 
but  one  flock  and  one  shepherd. 

These  are  saving  truths,  still  held  to  in  the  main  by  the  race 
of  Japhet,  in  spite  of  some  harsh  and  opposing  false  assertions, 
truths  which  the  Catholic  Church  alone  teaches  in  their  purity, 
and  which  are  yet  destined,  we  hope,  to  make  one  of  all  mankind. 

But  her  claims  are  yet  far  from  being  acknowledged  by  the 
leaders  in  the  movement.  And  who  are  those  leaders  ?  A  ques- 
tion all-important. 

England  is  certainly  the  first  and  foremost.  Endowed  with 
all  the  characteristics  of  the  Scandinavian  race,  which  we  shall 
touch  upon  after,  deeply  infused  with  the  blood  of  the  Danes 
and  ^Northmen,  she  has  all  the  indomitable  energy,  all  the  sys- 
tematic grasp  of  mind  and  sternness  of  purpose  joined  to  the 
wise  spirit  of  compromise  and  conservatism  of  the  men  of  the 
far  isbrth ;  she,  of  all  nations,  has  inherited  their  great  power  of 
expansion  at  sea,  possessing  all  the  roving  propensities  of  the 
old  Vikings,  and  the  spirit  of  trade,  enterprise,  and  colonization, 
of  those  old  Phoenicians  of  the  arctic  circle. 

The  Catholic  south  of  Europe,  Spain  and  Portugal,  having, 
through  causes  which  it  is  not  the  place  to  investigate  here,  lost 
their  power  on  the  ocean ;  the  temporary  maritime  supremacy 
of  Holland  having  passed  away,  because  the  people  of  that  flat 
country  were  too  close  and  narrow-minded  to  grasp  the  world 
for  any  length  of  time ;  France,  the  only  modern  rival  of  Eng- 
land as  a  naval  power,  having  been  compelled,  owing  to  the  revo- 
lutions of  the  last  and  the  present  centuries,  to  concentrate  her 
whole  strength  on  the  Continent  of  Europe ;  the  young  giant  of 
the  West,  America,  being  yet  unable  to  grasp  at  once  a  vast  con- 
tinent and  universal  sway  over  the  pathways  of  the  ocean,  Eng- 
land had  free  scope  for  her  maritime  enterprises,  and  she  threw 
herself  headlong  into  this  career.  Out  of  Europe  she  is  incon- 
testably  the  first  power  of  the  whole  world.  To  give  a  better 
idea  of  the  extent  of  her  dominion,  we  subjoin  an  abridged 
sketch  from  the  "  History  of  a  Hundred  Years,"  by  Cesare 
Cantii : 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


55 


"  In  Europe  she  has  colonies  at  Heligoland,  Gibraltar,  Malta, 
and  the  Ionian  Isles. 

"  In  Africa,  Bathurst,  Sierra  Leone,  many  establishments  on 
the  coast  of  Guinea,  the  islands  of  Mauritius,  Rodrigo,  Sechelles, 
Socotora,  Ascension,  St.  Helena,  and,  most  important  of  all,  the 
Cape  Colony. 

"In  Asia,  where  she  replaced  the  French  and  Dutch,  she 
has,  besides  Ceylon,  an  empire  of  150,000,000  of  people  in  India, 
the  islands  of  Singapore  and  Sumatra,  part  of  Malacca,  and  many 
establishments  in  China. 

"In  America,  she  is  mistress  of  Canada,  New  Brunswick, 
and  other  eastern  provinces ;  the  Lucayes,  Bermudas,  most  of 
the  Antilles,  part  of  Guiana,  and  the  Falkland  Isles. 

"  In  the  Southern  Ocean,  the  greater  part  of  Australia,  Tas- 
mania, Norfolk,  Yan  Diemen's  Land,  New  Zealand,  and  many 
other  groups  of  Oceanica  are  hers. 

"  What  other  state  can  compete  with  her  in  the  management 
of  colonies,  and  in  the  selection  of  situations  from  which  she 
could  command  the  sea  ?  J ersey  and  Guernsey  are  her  keys  of 
the  Straits  of  Dover ;  from  Heligoland  she  can  open  or  shut  the 
mouths  of  the  Elbe  and  Weser ;  from  Gibraltar  she  keeps  her 
eye  on  Spain  and  the  States  of  Barbary,  and  holds  the  gates  of 
the  Mediterranean.  With  Malta  and  Corfu  she  has  a  like  ad- 
vantage over  the  Levant.  Socotora  is  for  her  the  key  of  the 
Red  Sea,  whence  she  commands  Eastern  Africa  and  Abyssinia. 
Ormuz,  Chesmi,  and  Buschir,  give  her  the  mastery  over  the 
Persian  Gulf,  and  the  large  rivers  which  flow  into  it.  Aden 
secures  the  communication  of  Bombay  with  Suez.  Pulo  Pinan^ 
makes  her  mistress  of  the  Straits  of  Malacca,  and  Singapore,  of 
the  passage  between  China  and  India.  At  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  her  troops  form  an  advanced  guard  over  the  Indian  Ocean  ; 
and  from  Jamaica  she  rules  the  Antilles  and  trades  securely 
with  the  rest  of  Central  and  South  America. 

"  Englishmen  have  made  a  careful  survey  of  the  whole  of  the 
Mediterranean  Sea,  of  the  course  of  the  Indus,  the  Ganges,  the 
Bramaputra,  the  God  a  very,  and  other  rivers  of  India  ;  of  the 
whole  littoral  between  Cape  Colony  and  China ;  England  has 
steamships  on  the  Amazon  and  Niger,  and  her  vessels  are  found 
everywhere  on  the  coast  of  Chili  and  Peru." 

Other  European  families  try  to  follow  in  her  footsteps  ;  at 
their  head  the  United  States  now  stand.  Primitively  an  offshoot 
of  the  English  stock,  the  blood  of  all  other  Japhetic  races  has  given 
the  latter  country  an  activity  and  boldness  which  will  render  it 
in  time  superior  in  those  respects  to  the  mother-country  herself. 

Yet  at  this  time,  even  in  the  presence  of  the  United  States, 
in  the  presence  of  all  other  maritime  powers,  England  stands  at 
the  head  of  the  Japhetic  movement. 


56 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


Unfortunately,  her  first  aim,  after  acquiring  wealth  and  secur 
ing  her  power,  is,  to  exclude  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  as  far 
as  is  practicable  from  the  benefit  of  the  system,  to  oppose  her 
whenever  she  would  follow  in  the  wake  of  her  progress,  and 
either  to  allow  paganism  or  Mohammedanism  to  continue  in 
quiet  possession  wherever  they  exist,  or  to  substitute  for  them  as 
far  as  possible  her  Protestantism.  At  all  events,  the  Catholicity 
of  the  Church  is  to  be  crushed,  or  at  least  thwarted,  to  make 
room  for  the  catholicity  of  the  English  nation. 

And  it  looks  as  though  such,  in  truth,  would  have  been  the 
result,  had  not  the  stubbornness  of  the  Irish  character  stood  in 
the  way ;  if  the  Celt  of  Erin,  after  centuries  of  oppression  and 
opposition  to  the  false  wanderings  of  the  European  stream,  had 
not  insisted  on  following  the  English  lord  in  his  travels,  dogging 
his  steps  everywhere,  entering  his  ships  welcome  or  unwelcome, 
rushing  on  shore  with  him  wherever  he  thought  fit  to  land,  and 
there  planted  his  shanty  and  his  frame  church  in  the  very  sight  of 
stately  palaces  lately  erected,  and  gorgeous  temples  with  storied 
windows  and  softly-carpeted  floors. 

And  after  a  few  years  the  Irish  Celt  would  show  himself  as 
active  and  industrious  in  his  new  country  as  oppression  had 
made  him  indolent  and  careless  on  his  own  soil ;  the  shanty 
would  be  replaced  by  a  house  worthy  of  a  man  ;  above  all,  the 
humble  dwelling  which  he  first  raised  to  his  God  would  disap- 
pear to  make  room  for  an  edifice  not  altogether  unworthy  of 
divine  majesty ;  at  least,  far  above  the  pretentious  structures  of 
the  oppressors  of  his  religion.  The  eyes  of  men  would  be  again 
turned  to  u  the  city  built  upon  a  mountain ; "  and  the  character 
of  universality,  instead  of  being  wrested  from  the  true  Church, 
would  become  more  resplendent  than  ever  through  the  steadfast 
Irish  Celt. 

Thus  the  spreading  of  the  Gospel  in  distant  regions  would 
be  accomplished  without  a  navy  of  their  own.  As  their  ances- 
tors did  in  pagan  times,  they  would  use  the  vessels  of  nations 
born  for  thrift  and  trade  ;  the  stately  ships  of  the  "  Egyptians  " 
would  be  used  by  the  true  "  people  of  God." 

For  them  hath  Stephenson  perfected  the  steam-engine,  so  as 
to  enable  vessels  to  undertake  long  voyages  at  sea  without  the 
necessary  help  of  sails ;  for  them  ferunel  and  others  had  spent 
long  years  in  planning  and  constructing  novel  Noah's  arks  capa- 
ble of  containing  all  clean  and  unclean  animals ;  for  them  the 
Barings  and  other  wealthy  capitalists  had  embraced  the  five  con- 
tinents and  the  isles  of  the  ocean  in  their  financial  schemes ;  the 
Jews  of  England,  Germany,  and  France,  the  Rothschilds  and 
Mendelssohns,  had  accumulated  large  amounts  of  money  to  lend 
to  ship-building  companies ;  for  them,  in  fine,  the  long-hidden 
gold  deposits  01  California,  Australia,  and  many  other  places,  had 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


57 


been  discovered  at  the  proper  time  to  replenish  the  coffers  of  the 
godless,  that  they  might  undertake  to  furnish  the  means  of  trans- 
portation and  settlement  for  the  missionaries  of  God ! 

And,  to  prove  that  this  is  no  exaggeration,  it  is  enough  to 
look  at  the  number  of  emigrants  that  were  to  be  carried  to  for- 
eign parts,  and  that  actually  left  England  for  her  various  colonies 
or  for  the  United  States.  For  several  years  one  thousand  Irish 
people  sailed  daily  from  the  ports  of  Great  Britain  ;  and  for  a 
great  number  of  years  200,000  at  least  did  so  every  twelve 
months.  When  we  come  to  contrast  the  Irish  at  home  with  the 
Irish  abroad,  we  shall  give  fuller  details  than  are  possible  here. 
These  few  words  suffice  to  show  the  immense  number  of  vessels 
and  the  vast  sums  that  were  required  for  such  an  extraordinary 
operation. 

This  phenomenon  is  surely  curious  enough,  universal  enough, 
and  sufficiently  portentous  in  its  consequences,  to  deserve  a 
thorough  inquiry  into  its  causes  and  the  way  in  which  it  was 
brought  about. 

It  will  be  seen  that  it  all  came  from  the  Irish  having  kept 
themselves  aloof  from  the  other  branches  of  the  great  Japhetic 
race  in  order  to  join  in  the  general  movement  at  the  right  time 
and  in  their  own  way,  constantly  opposed  to  all  the  evil  that 
is  in  it,  but  using  it  in  the  way  Providence  intended. 

The  chapters  which  follow  will  be  devoted  to  the  develop- 
ment of  this  general  idea  ;  the  few  remarks  with  which  we  close 
the  present  may  tend  to  set  the  conclusion  which  we  draw  more 
distinctly  before  our  minds. 

There  is  no  doubt  that,  taking  the  Irish  nation  as  a  whole, 
we  find  in  it  features  which  are  visible  in  no  other  European 
nation  ;  and  that,  taking  Europe  as  a  whole,  in  all  its  complexity . 
of  habits,  manners,  tendencies,  and  ways  of  life,  we  have  a  pict- 
ure wholly  distinct  from  that  of  the  Irish  people.  England  has 
striven  during  the  last  eight  hundred  years  to  shape  it  and  make 
it  the  creature  of  her  thought,  and  England  has  utterly  failed. 

The  same  race  of  men  and  women  inhabit  the  isle  of  Erin  to- 
day as  that  which  held  it  a  thousand  years  ago,  with  the  distinc- 
tion that  it  is  now  far  more  wretched  and  deserving  of  pity  than 
it  was  then.  The  people  possess  the  same  primitive  habits, 
simple  thoughts,  ardent  impulsiveness,  stubborn  spirit,  and  buoy- 
ant disposition,  in  spite  of  ages  of  oppression.  In  the  course  of 
centuries  they  have  not  furnished  a  single  man  to  that  army 
of  rash  minds  which  have  carried  the  rest  of  Europe  headlong 
through  lofty,  perhaps,  but  at  bottom  empty  and  idle  theories, 
to  the  brink  of  that  bottomless  abyss  into  which  no  one  can  peer 
without  a  shudder. 

No  heresiarch  has  found  place  among  them  ;  no  fanciful  phi- 
losopher, no  holder  of  Itfol  and  hand  light  to  deceive  nations 


53 


TEE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


and  lead  them  astray,  no  proponnder  of  social  theories  opposed 
to  those  of  the  Gospel,  no  inventor  of  new  theogonies  and  cos- 
mologies— new  in  name,  old  in  fact — rediscovered  by  modern 
students  in  the  Kings  of  China,  the  Vedas  of  Hindostan,  the 
Zends  of  Persia,  or  Eddas  of  the  [North  ;  no  ardent  explorer  of 
Nature,  seeking  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  or  on  the  summits  of 
mountains,  or  in  the  depths  of  the  ocean,  or  the  motions  of  the 
stars,  proofs  that  God  does  not  exist,  or  that  matter  has  always 
existed,  that  man  has  made  himself,  developing  his  own  con- 
sciousness out  of  the  instinct  of  the  brute,  or  even  out  of  the 
material  motions  of  the  zoophyte. 

We  would  beg  the  reader  to  bear  in  mind  those  insane  theo- 
ries so  prevalent  to-day,  out  of  which  society  can  hope  for  noth- 
ing but  convulsions  and  calamities,  to  see  how  all  the  nations 
of  Europe  have  contributed  to  the  baneful  result  except  the 
Irish  ;  that  they  alone  have  furnished  no  false  leader  in  those 
wanderings  from  the  right  path ;  that  their  community  has  been 
opposed  all  through  to  the  adoption  of  the  theories  which  led  to 
them,  have  spurned  them  with  contempt,  and  even  refused  to 
inquire  into  them  :  with  these  thoughts  and  recollections  in  his 
mind,  he  may  understand  what  we  mean  when  we  assert  that 
the  Irish  have  stubbornly  refused  to  enter  upon  the  European 
movement.  Although,  by  the  reception  of  Christianity,  they 
were  admitted  into  the  European  family,  the  Christianity  which 
they  received  was  so  thoroughly  imbibed  and  so  completely  car- 
ried out  that  any  thing  in  the  least  opposed  to  it  was  sternly 
rejected  by  the  whole  nation.  Hence  they  became  a  people  of 
peculiar  habits.  Rejecting  the  harsh  features  of  feudalism,  not 
caring  for  the  refinement  of  the  so-called  revival  of  learning, 
sternly  opposed  at  all  times  to  Protestantism,  they  would  have 
naught  to  do  with  what  was  rejected  or  even  suspected  by  the 
Church,  until  in  our  days  thev  offer  to  the  eves  of  the  world  the 
spectacle  we  have  sketched.  Thus  have  they,  not  the  least  by 
reason  of  their  long  martyrdom,  become  fit  instruments  for  the 
great  work  Providence  asks  of  them  to-day. 

England,  the  great  leader  in  the  material  part  of  the  social 
movement  which  has  been  the  subject  of  this  chapter,  for  a  long 
time  hesitated  to  adopt  principles  altogether  subversive  to  so- 
ciety. In  her  worldly  good  sense  she  endeavored  to  follow  what 
she  imagined  a  ma  media  in  her  wisdom,  to  avoid  what  seemed 
to  her  extremes,  but  what  is  in  reality  the  eternal  antagonism 
of  truth  and  falsehood,  of  order  and  chaos.  Twenty  years  back 
there  was  a  unanimity  among  English  writers  to  speak  the  lan- 
guage of  moderation  and  good  sense  whenever  a  rash  author  of 
foreign  nations  hazarded  some  dangerous  novelties ;  and  in  their 
reviews  they  immediately  pointed  out  the  poison  which  lay  con- 
cealed under  the  covering  of  science  or  imagination,  and  the  peril 


THE  WORLD  LED  BY  EUROPE. 


59 


of  these  ever-increasing  new  discoveries.  If  any  Englishman 
sanctioned  those  theories,  he  could  not  form  a  school  among  his 
countrymen,  and  remained  almost  alone  of  his  party. 

But  at  last  England  has  given  way  to  the  universal  spread 
of  temptation,  and  to-day  she  runs  the  race  of  disorganization  as 
ardent  as  any,  striving  to  be  a  leader  among  other  leaders  to 
ruin.  Every  one  is  astounded  at  the  sudden  and  remarkable 
change.  It  is  truly  inexplicable,  save  by  the  fearful  axiom,  Quos 
Deus  vult  perdere,  dementat.  Hence  not  a  few  expect  soon 
to  see  storms  sweep  over  the  devoted  island  of  Great  Britain, 
which  no  longer  forms  an  exception  to  the  universality  of  the 
evil  we  have  indicated. 

Which,  then,  is  the  one  safe  spot  in  Europe,  whither  the  tide 
of  folly,  or  madness  rather,  has  not  yet  come  \ 

Ireland  alone  is  the  answer. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  IRISH  BETTER  PREPARED  TO  RECEIVE  CHRISTIANITY  THAN 

OTHER  NATIONS. 

The  introduction  of  Christianity  gave  Europe  a  power  over 
the  world  which  pagan  Home  could  not  possess.  All  the  branches 
of  the  Japhetic  family  combined  to  form  what  was  with  justice 
and  propriety  called  Christendom.  Ireland,  by  receiving  the 
Gospel,  was  really  making  her  first  entry  into  the  European 
family ;  but  there  were  certain  peculiarities  in  her  performance 
of  this  great  act  which  gave  her  national  life,  already  deviating 
from  that  of  other  European  nations,  a  unique  impulse.  The  first 
of  those  peculiarities  consisted  in  her  preparation  for  the  great 
reception  of  the  faith,  and  the  few  obstacles  she  encountered  in 
her  adoption  of  it,  compared  with  those  of  the  rest  of  the  world. 

Providence  wisely  decreed  that  redemption  should  be  delayed 
until  a  large  portion  of  mankind  had  attained  to  the  highest 
civilization.  It  was  not  in  a  time  of  ignorance  and  barbarism 
that  the  Saviour  was  born.  The  Augustan  is,  undoubtedly,  the 
most  intellectual  and  refined  age,  in  point  of  literary  and  artistic 
taste,  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  A  few  centuries  before, 
Greece  had  reached  the  summit  of  science  and  art.  No  country, 
in  ancient  or  modern  times,  has  surpassed  the  acumen  of  her 
philosophical  writers  and  the  aesthetic  perfection  of  her  poets  and 
artists.  Pome  made  use  of  her  to  embellish  her  cities,  and  in- 
herited her  taste  for  science  and  literature. 

But  art  and  literature  embody  ideas  only ;  and,  as  Ozanam 
says  so  well :  "  Beneath  the  current  of  ideas  which  dispute  the 
empire  of  the  world,  lies  that  world  itself  such  as  labor  has  made 
it,  with  that  treasure  of  wealth  and  visible  adornment  which 
render  it  worthy  of  being  the  transient  sojourn-place  of  immortal 
souls.  Beneath  the  true,  the  good,  and  the  beautiful,  lies  the 
useful,  which  is  brightened  by  their  reflection.  No  people  has 
more  keenly  appreciated  the  idea  of  utility  than  that  of  Pome  ; 
none  has  ever  laid  upon  the  earth  a  hand  more  full  of  power,  or 
more  capable  of  transforming  it ;  nor  more  profusely  flung  the 
treasures  of  earth  at  the  feet  of  humanity.  .  .  . 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


61 


"  At  the  close  of  the  second  century  ....  the  rhetorician 
Aristides  celebrated  in  the  following  terms  the  greatness  of  the 
Roman  Empire :  6  Romans,  the  whole  world  beneath  your  do- 
minion seems  to  keep  a  day  of  festival.  From  time  to  time  a 
sound  of  battle  comes  to  you  from  the  ends  of  the  earth,  where 
you  are  repelling  the  Goth,  the  Moor,  or  the  Arab.  But  soon 
that  sound  is  dispersed  like  a  dream.  Other  are  the  rivalries 
and  different  the  conflicts  which  you  excite  through  the  universe. 
They  are  combats  of  glory,  rivalries  in  magniticence  between 
provinces  and  cities.  Through  you,  gymnasia,  aqueducts,  porti- 
coes, temples,  and  schools,  are  multiplied ;  the  very  soil  revives, 
and  the  earth  is  but  one  vast  garden ! ' 

"  Similar,  also,  was  the  language  of  the  stern  Tertullian  :  '  In 
truth,  the  world  becomes  day  after  day  richer  and  better  culti- 
vated ;  even  the  islands  are  no  longer  solitudes  ;  the  rocks  have 
no  more  terrors  for  the  navigator  ;  everywhere  there  are  habita- 
tions, population,  law,  and  life.' 

"  The  legions  of  Rome  had  constructed  the  roads  which  fur- 
rowed mountains,  leaped  over  marshes,  and  crossed  so  many 
different  provinces  with  a  like  solidity,  regularity,  and  uniform- 
ity ;  and  the  various  races  of  men  were  lost  in  admiration  at  the 
sight  of  the  mighty  works  which  were  attributed  in  after-times 
to  Caesar,  to  Brunehaud,  to  Abelard  ! " 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  those  worldly  glories  that  Christ  was 
born,  that  he  preached,  and  suffered,  that  his  religion  was  estab- 
lished and  propagated.  It  found  proselytes  at  once  among  the 
most  polished  and  the  most  learned  of  men,  as  well  as  among 
slaves  and  artisans ;  and  thus  was  it  proved  that  Christianity 
could  satisfy  the  loftiest  aspirations  of  the  most  civilized  as  well 
as  insure  the  happiness  of  the  most  numerous  and  miserable 
classes. 

But  we  must  reflect  that  the  advanced  civilization  of  Greece 
and  Rome  was  in  fact  an  immense  obstacle  to  the  propagation  of 
truth,  and,  what  is  more  to  be  regretted,  often  gave  an  unnatural 
aspect  to  the  Christianity  of  the  first  ages  in  the  Roman  world — 
a  half-pagan  look — so  that  the  barbarian  invasion  was  almost 
necessary  to  destroy  every  thing  of  the  natural  order ;  that  the 
Church  alone  remaining  face  to  face  with  those  uncouth  children 
of  the  North,  might  begin  her  mission  anew  and  mould  them  all 
into  the  family  called  "  Christendom." 

"  Christianity,"  to  quote  Ozanam  again,  "  shrank  from  con- 
demning a  veneration  of  the  beautiful,  although  idolatry  was 
contained  in  it ;  and  as  it  honored  the  human  mind  and  the  arts 
it  produced,  so  the  persecution  of  the  apostate  Julian,  in  which 
the  study  of  the  classics  had  been  forbidden  to  the  faithful,  was 
the  severest  of  its  trials.  Literary  history  possesses  no  moment 
of  greater  interest  than  that  which  saw  the  school  with  its  profane 


62 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


— that  is  to  say,  pagan — traditions  and  texts  received  into  the 
Church.  The  Fathers,  whose  christian  austerity  is  our  wonder, 
were  passionate  in  their  love  of  antiquity,  which  they  covered,  as 
it  were,  with  their  sacred  vestments.  .  .  .  By  their  favor,  Yirgil 
traversed  the  ages  of  iron  without  losing  a  page,  and,  by  right  of 
his  Fourth  Eclogue,  took  rank  among  the  prophets  and  the  sibyls. 
St.  Augustine  would  have  blamed  paganism  less,  if,  in  place  of  a 
temple  to  Cybele,  it  had  raised  a  shrine  to  Plato,  in  which  his 
works  might  have  been  publicly  read.  St.  Jerome's  dream  is 
well  known,  and  the  scourging  inflicted  upon  him  by  angels  for 
having  loved  Cicero  too  well ;  yet  his  repentance  was  but  short- 
lived, since  he  caused  the  monks  of  the  Mount  of  Olives  to  pass 
their  nights  in  copying  the  Ciceronian  dialogues,  and  did  not 
shrink  himself  from  expounding  the  comic  and  lyric  poets  to  the 
children  of  Bethlehem." 

We  know  already  that  nothing  of  the  kind  existed  in  Ireland 
when  the  Gospel  reached  her,  and  that  there  the  new  religion 
assumed  a  peculiar  aspect,  which  has  never  varied,  and  which 
made  her  at  once  and  forever  a  preeminently  Christian  nation. 

Among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  literature  and  art,  although 
accepted  by  the  Church,  were  nevertheless  deeply  impregnated 
with  paganism.  All  their  chief  acts  of  social  life  required  a  pro- 
fession of  idolatry ;  even  amusements,  dramatic  representations, 
and  simple  games,  were  religious  and  consequently  pagan  exhi- 
bitions. 

We  do  not  here  speak  of  the  attractions  of  an  atheistic  and 
materialist  philosophy,  of  a  voluptuous,  often,  and  demoraliz- 
ing literature  and  poetry,  of  an  unimaginable  prostitution  of  art 
to  the  vilest  passions,  which  the  relics  of  Pompeii  too  abundantly 
indicate. 

But  apart  from  those  excesses  of  corruption  and  unbelief, 
which,  no  doubt,  virtuous  pagans  themselves  abhorred,  the  ap- 
proved, correct,  and  so-called  pure  life  of  the  best  men  of  pagan 
Kome  necessitated  the  contamination  of  idolatrous  worship. 
Apart  from  the  thousand  duties,  festivals,  and  the  like,  decreed 
or  sanctioned  by  the  state,  the  most  ordinary  acts  of  life,  the  en- 
listing of  the  soldier,  the  starting  on  a  military  expedition,  the 
assumption  of  any  civil  office  or  magistracy,  the  civil  oaths  in  the 
courts  of  law,  the  public  bath,  the  public  walk  almost,  the  cur- 
rent terms  in  conversation,  the  private  reading  of  the  best  books, 
the  mere  glancing  at  a  multitude  of  exterior  objects,  constituted 
almost  as  many  professions  of  a  false  and  pagan  worship. 

How  could  any  one  become  a  Christian  and  at  the  same  time 
remain  a  Greek  or  a  Roman  ?  The  gloomy  views  of  the  Mon- 
tanist  Tertullian  were,  to  many,  frightful  truths  requiring  constant 
care  and  self-examen.  For  the  Christian  there  were  two  courses 
open — both  excesses,  yet  either  almost  unavoidable :  on  the  one 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


63 


side,  a  terrible  rigorism,  making  life  unsupportable,  next  to  im- 
possible ;  on  the  other,  a  laxity  of  thought  and  action  leading  to 
lukewarmness  and  sometimes  apostasy. 

Bearing  in  mind  what  was  written  on  the  subject  in  the  first 
three  ages  of  Christianity,  not  only  by  Tertullian,  but  by  most 
orthodox  writers,  St.  Cyprian,  Lactantius,  Arnobius,  and  the 
authors  of  many  Acts  of  martyrs,  we  may  easily  understand  how 
the  doctrines  of  Christianity  stood  in  danger  of  never  taking  deep 
root  in  the  hearts  of  men  surrounded  by  such  temptations,  them- 
selves born  in  paganism,  and  remaining,  after  their  conversion, 
exposed  to  seductions  of  such  an  alluring  character. 

Therefore  this  same  "  high  civilization,"  as  it  is  called,  in  the 
midst  of  which  Christianity  was  preached,  was  a  real  danger  to 
the  inward  life  of  the  new  disciple  of  Christ. 

How  could  it  be  otherwise,  when  it  is  a  fact  now  known  to 
all,  that,  even  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  Rome  was 
almost  entirely  pagan,  at  least  outwardly,  and  among  her  highest 
classes  ;  so  that  the  poet  Claudian,  in  addressing  Honorius  at  the 
beginning  of  his  sixth  consulship,  pointed  out  to  him  the  site  of 
the  capitol  still  crowned  with  the  Temple  of  Jove,  surrounded  by 
numerous  pagan  edifices,  supporting  in  air  an  army  of  gods  ;  and 
all  around  temples,  chapels,  statues,  without  number — in  fact,  the 
whole  Roman  and  Greek  mythology,  standing  in  the  City  of  the 
Catacombs  and  of  the  Popes  ! 

The  public  calendars,  preserved  to  this  day,  continued  to  note 
the  pagan  festivals  side  by  side  with  the  feasts  of  the  Saviour  and 
his  apostles.  Within  the  city  and  beyond,  throughout  Italy  and 
the  most  remote  provinces,  idols  and  their  altars  were  still  sur- 
rounded by  the  thronging  populace,  prostrate  at  their  feet. 

If  in  the  cities  the  new  religion  already  dared  display  some- 
thing of  its  inherent  splendor,  the  whole  rural  population  was 
still  pagan,  singing  the  praises  of  Ceres  and  of  Bacchus,  trembling 
at  Fauns  and  Satyrs  and  the  numerous  divinities  of  the  groves 
and  fountains.  Christianity  then  held  the  same  standing  in  Italy 
that  in  the  United  States  Catholicity  holds  to-day  in  the  midst  of 
innumerable  religious  sects. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  show  how  far  the  paganism  of  Greece 
and  Rome  had  corrupted  society,  and  how  complete  was  its  rot- 
tenness at  the  time.  It  has  been  already  shown  by  several  great 
writers  of  this  century.  Enough  for  our  purpose  to  remark 
that  even  some  Christian  writers,  of  the  age  immediately  succeed- 
ing that  of  the  early  martyrs,  showed  themselves  more  than  half 
pagans  in  their  tastes  and  productions.  Ausonius  in  the  West, 
the  preceptor  of  St.  Paulinus,  is  so  obscene  in  some  of  his  poems, 
so  thoroughly  pagan  in  others,  that  critics  have  for  a  long  time 
hesitated  to  pronounce  him  a  Christian.  How  many  of  his  con- 
temporaries hovered  like  him  on  the  confines  of  Christianity  and 


64 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


paganism !  "When  Julian  the  apostate  restored  idolatry,  many, 
who  had  only  disgraced  the  name  of  Christian,  openly  returned 
to  the  worship  ot  Jupiter  and  Venus,  and  their  apostasy  could 
scarcely  be  cause  for  regret  to  sincere  disciples  of  our  Lord. 

In  the  East  the  phenomenon  is  less  striking.  Strange  to  say, 
idolatry  did  not  remain  so  firmly  rooted  in  the  country,  where  it 
first  took  such  an  alluring  shape ;  and  Constantinople  was  in 
every  sense  of  the  word  a  Christian  city  when  Rome,  in  her 
senate,  fought  with  such  persistent  tenacity  for  her  altars  of  Vic- 
tory, her  vestals,  and  her  ancient  worship. 

Yet  there,  also,  Christian  writers  were  too  apt  to  interfuse  the 
old  ideas  with  the  new,  and  to  adopt  doctrines  placed,  as  it  were, 
midway  between  those  of  Plato  and  St.  Paul.  There  were 
bishops  even  who  were  a  scandal  to  the  Church  and  yet  remained 
in  it.  Synesius  is  the  most  striking  example ;  whose  doctrine 
was  certainly  more  philosophical  than  Christian,  and  whose  life, 
though  decorous,  was  altogether  worldly.  The  history  of  Arian- 
ism  shows  that  others  besides  Synesius  were  far  removed  from 
the  ideal  of  Christian  bishops  so  worthily  represented  at  the  time 
by  many  great  doctors  and  holy  pontiff's. 

Such,  in  the  East  as  well  as  in  the  West,  were  the  perils  be- 
setting the  true  Christian  spirit  at  the  very  cradle  of  our  holy 
religion. 

Nor  was  the  danger  confined  to  the  mythology  of  paganism, 
its  literature  and  poetry.  Philosophy  itself  became  a  real  stum- 
bling-block to  many,  who  would  fain  appear  disciples  of  faith, 
when  they  gave  themselves  up  to  the  most  unrestrained  wander- 
ings of  human  reason. 

The  truth  is,  that  Greek  philosophy,  divided  into  so  many 
schools  in  order  to  please  all  tastes,  had  become  a  wide-spread 
institution  throughout  the  Poman  world.  The  mind  of  the 
East  was  best  adapted  to  it,  and  those  who  taught  it  were,  con- 
sequently, nearly  all  Greeks.  Cicero  had  made  it  fashionable 
among  many  of  his  countrymen  ;  and  although  the  Latin  mind, 
always  practical  to  the  verge  of  utilitarianism,  was  not  con- 
genial to  Utopian  speculations,  still,  as  it  was  the  fashion,  all  in- 
tellectual men  felt  the  need  of  becoming  sufficiently  acquainted 
with  it  to  be  able  to  speak  of  it  and  even  to  embrace  some  par- 
ticular school.  Those  patricians,  who  remained  attached  to  the 
stern  principles  of  the  old  republic,  became  Stoics;  while  the 
men  of  the  corrupt  aristocracy  called  themselves,  with  Horace, 
members  of  the  "  Epicurean  herd."  Hence  the  necessity  for  all 
to  train  their  minds  to  scientific  speculation,  converted  the  West- 
ern world  into  a  hot-bed  of  wild  and  dangerous  doctrines. 

In  the  opinion  of  some  Eastern  Fathers  of  the  Church,  Greek 
philosophy  had  been  a  preparation  for  the  Gospel,  and  could  be 
made  subservient  to  the  conversion  of  many.    Thus  we  find  St. 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


65 


Justin,  the  martyr,  all  his  life  long  glorying  in  the  name  of  phi- 
losopher, and  continuing  to  wear,  even  after  his  conversion,  the 
philosopher's  cloak  so  mnch  derided  by  the  scoffer,  Lucian. 

Still,  despite  this  very  respectable  opinion,  we  can  entertain 
no  doubt,  in  view  of  what  happened  at  the  time  and  of  subse- 
quent events,  that  philosophy  grew  to  be  a  stumbling-block  in 
the  path  of  Christianity,  and  originated  the  worst  and  most  dan- 
gerous forms  of  heresy ;  that  it  sowed  the  seed,  in  the  European 
mind,  of  all  errors,  by  creating  that  speculative  tendency  of 
character  so  peculiar  to  most  branches  of  the  Japhetic  race. 

Persian  Dualism,  and,  as  many  think,  Pantheistic  Buddhism, 
which  were  then  flourishing  in  Central  and  Eastern  Asia,  infected 
the  Alexandrian  schools,  and  impressed  philosophy  with  a  new 
and  dreamy  character,  which  became  the  source  of  subsequent 
and  frightful  errors.  The  X eo-Platonism  of  Porphyry  and  Ploti- 
nus  was  intended,  in  the  minds  of  its  originators,  to  lay  a  scien- 
tific basis  for  polytheism  ;  and,  in  Jamblichus  finally,  became  an 
open  justification  of  the  most  absurd  fables  of  mythology. 

But,  though  this  might  satisfy  Julian  and  those  who  followed 
him  in  his  apostasy,  it  could  not  come  to  be  an  inner  danger  to  the 
Church.  With  many,  however,  it  assumed  a  form  which  at  once 
engendered  the  worst  errors  of  Gnosticism ;  and  Gnosticism  was, 
at  nrst,  considered  a  Christian  heresy ;  so  that  a  man  might  be  a 
antheist,  of  the  worst  kind,  and  still  call  himself  Christian.  St. 
ohn  had  foreseen  the  danger  from  the  beginning,  and  it  is  said 
that  he  wrote  his  gospel  against  it  because  the  doctrine  openly 
denied  the  divinity  of  Christ.  But  the  sect  became  much  more 
powerful  after  his  death,  and  allured  many  Christians  who  were 
disposed,  from  a  misinterpretation  of  some  texts  of  St.  Paul  on 
the  struggle  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit,  to  embrace  a  sys- 
tem which  professed  to  explain  the  origin  of  that  struggle.  • 

The  Alexandrian  Gnosticism  failed  to  excite  in  the  minds  of 
the  holy  monks  of  the  East  that  aversion  which  we  now  feel  for 
its  tenets,  inasmuch  as  it  did  not  openly  anathematize  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  Law,  nay,  even  preserved  a  certain  out- 
ward respect  for  them,  on  account  of  the  multitude  of  Jews  liv- 
ing in  Alexandria,  and  particularly  because  the  open  system  of 
Dualism,  which  afterward  came  from  Syria  and  in  the  hands  of 
Manes  established  the  existence  of  two  equal  and  eternal  princi- 
ples of  good  and  evil,  found  no  place  in  the  teachings  of  Valen- 
tinus  and  his  school. 

But  even  this  frightful  Syrian  Gnosticism,  which  gave  to  the 
principle  of  evil  an  origin  as  ancient  and  sacred  as  that  of  God 
himself — Manicheism  barefaced  and  radically  immoral — so  re- 
ugnant  to  our  feelings,  so  monstrous  to  our  more  correct  ideas, 
ore  a  semblance  of  truth  for  many  minds,  at  that  time  inclined 
toward  every  thing  which  came  from  the  East.    We  know  what  a 
5 


66 


PREPAKATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


firm  hold  those  doctrines  took  on  the  great  soul  of  Augustine, 
who  for  a  long  time  professed  and  cherished  them.  Rome,  un- 
der the  pagan  emperors,  had  received  with  open  arms  the  Orien- 
tal gods  and  the  philosophy  which  endeavored  to  explain  their 
mythology  ;  and  many  gifted  minds  of  the  third  and  fourth  cen- 
turies lost  themselves  in  the  contemplation  of  those  mysteries 
which  from  out  Central  Asia  spread  a  lurid  glare  over  the  West- 
ern world. 

This  first  danger,  however,  was  warded  off  by  the  writings 
of  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch,  St.  Irenseus  of  Lyons,  Clement  of  Al- 
exandria, Tertullian,  Origen,  St.  Epiphanius,  Theodoret,  and 
others,  long  before  the  time  of  St.  Augustine,  the  last  of  them. 
Gnosticism  was  prevented  from  any  longer  imparting  a  wrong 
tendency  to  Christian  doctrines,  and  it  died  out,  until  restored 
during  the  Crusades  to  revive  in  the  middle  ages  in  its  most  ma- 
lignant form. 

But  at  the  very  moment  of  its  decline,  philosophy  entered  the 
Church,  almost  to  wreck  her  by  inspiring  Arius  and  Pelagius. 
The  teachings  of  the  first  were  clearly  Keo-Platonic ;  of  the  sec- 
ond, Stoic :  and  all  the  errors  prevalent  in  the  Church  from  the 
third  to  the  sixth  century  originated  in  Arianism  and  Pelagian- 
ism. 

In  Plato,  as  read  in  Alexandria,  Arius  found  all  the  material 
for  his  doctrine,  which  spread  like  wild-fire  over  the  whole 
Church.  Many  things  conspired  to  swell  the  number  of  his 
adherents :  the  ardent  love  for  philosophy  60  inherent  in  the 
Eastern  Church,  to  the  extent  of  many  believing  that  Plato  was 
almost  a  Christian,  and  his  doctrines  therefore  endowed  with  real 
authority ;  the  natural  disposition  of  men  to  adopt  the  new  and 
a  seeming  rational  explanation  of  unfathomable  mysteries ;  the 
apparent  agreement  of  his  doctrine  with  certain  passages  of 
Scripture,  where  the  Son  is  said  to  be  inferior  to  the  Father  ;  but 
chiefly  the  satisfaction  it  afforded  to  a  number  of  new  Christians 
who  had  embraced  the  faith  at  the  conversion  of  Constantine  on 
political  rather  than  conscientious  grounds,  and  who  were  at 
once  relieved  of  the  supernatural  burden  of  believing  in  a  God- 
man,  born  of  a  woman,  and  dying  on  a  cross.  Faith  reduced  to 
an  opinion  ;  religion  become  a  philosophy ;  a  mere  man,  let  his 
endowments  be  what  they  might,  recognized  as  our  guide,  and 
not  overwhelming  us  with  the  dread  weight  of  a  divine  nature ; 
all  this  explains  the  historic  phrase  of  St.  Jerome  after  the  Coun- 
cil of  Rimini,  "  The  world  groaned  and  wondered  to  find  itself 
Arian." 

Any  person  acquainted  with  ecclesiastical  history  knows  how 
the  Church  of  Christ  would  have  surely  become  converted  into  a 
mere  rational  school,  under  the  pressure  of  these  doctrines,  were 
't  not  for  the  promises  of  perpetuity  which  she  had  received. 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


67 


We  know  also  what  a  time  it  took  to  establish  truth :  how 
many  councils  had  to  meet,  how  many  books  had  to  be  written, 
the  efforts  required  from  the  rulers  of  the  Church,  chiefly  from 
the  Roman  pontiffs,  to  calm  so  many  storms,  to  explain  so  many 
difficult  points  of  doctrine,  to  secure  the  final  victory. 

And,  after  all  had  been  accomplished,  there  still  remained  the 
root  of  the  evil  engrafted  in  what  we  call  the  philosophical  turn 
of  mind  of  the  Western  nations — that  is  to  say,  in  the  disposi- 
tion to  call  every  thing  in  question,  to  seek  out  strange  and  novel 
difficulties,  to  start  war-provoking  theories  in  the  midst  of  peace, 
to  aim  at  founding  a  new  school,  or  at  least  to  stand  forth  as  the 
brilliant  and  startling  expounder  of  old  doctrines  in  a  new  form, 
in  fine  to  add  a  last  name  to  the  list,  already  over-long,  of  those 
who  have  disturbed  the  world  by  their  skill  in  dialectics  and 
sophism. 

Pelagius  followed  Arius,  and  his  errors  had  the  same  object 
in  view  in  the  long-run,  to  strip  our  holy  religion  of  all  that  is 
spiritual  and  divine. 

In  the  time  of  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Jerome,  there  existed 
among  Christians  an  extraordinary  tendency  to  embrace  all  pos- 
sible philosophical  doctrines,  even  when  directly  opposed  to  the 
first  principles  of  revealed  religion ;  and,  within  the  Church,  the 
danger  of  subtilizing  on  every  question  connected  with  well- 
known  dogmas  was  much  greater  than  many  imagine. 

From  the  previous  reflections  we  may  learn  how  difficult  it 
was  to  establish,  in  pagan  Europe,  a  thoroughly  Christian  life 
and  doctrine  ;  and  that,  after  society  had  come  to  be  apparently 
imbued  with  the  new  spirit,  it  was  still  too  easy  to  disturb  the 
flowing  stream  of  the  heavenly  graces  of  the  Gospel.  This  re- 
sulted, we  repeat,  from  causes  anterior  to  Christianity,  from 
sources  of  evil  which  the  divine  religion  had  to  overcome,  and 
which  too  often  impeded  its  supernatural  action.  In  fact,  the 
ecclesiastical  history  of  those  ages  is  comprised  mainly  in  depict- 
ing the  almost  continual  deviations  from  the  straight  line  of  pure 
doctrine  and  morality,  and  the  strenuous  efforts  assiduously 
made  by  the  rulers  of  the  Church  against  a  never-ceasing  falling 
away. 

Having  taken  this  glance  at  the  early  workings  of  Christianity 
through  the  rest  of  the  world,  we  may  now  turn  fairly  to  the 
immediate  subject  we  have  in  hand,  and  trace  its  course  in  Ire- 
land. From  the  very  beginning  we  are  struck  by  the  peculiari- 
ties— blessed,  indeed — which  show  themselves,  as  in  all  other 
matters,  in  its  reception  of  the  truth.  The  island,  compared 
with  Europe,  is  small,  it  is  true ;  but  the  heroism  displayed  by 
its  inhabitants  during  so  many  ages,  in  support  of  the  religion 
which  they  received  so  freely,  so  generously,  and  at  once,  in 
mind  as  well  as  heart,  marks  it  out  as  worthy  of  a  special  account ; 


68 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


and,  from  its  unique  reception  and  adherence  to  the  faith,  as 
worthy  of,  if  possible,  a  natural  explanation  of  such  action  be- 
yond the  promptings  of  Divine  grace,  since  its  astonishing  per- 
severance, its  unswerving  faith,  Form  to-day  as  great  a  character- 
istic of  the  nation  as  they  did  on  the  day  of  its  entry  into  the 
Christian  Church. 

We  proceed  to  examine,  then,  the  kind  of  idolatry  which  its 
first  apostle  encountered  on  landing  in  the  island,  and  the  ease 
with  which  it  was  destroyed,  so  as  to  leave  behind  no  poisonous 
shoots  of  the  deadly  root  of  evil. 

In  order  to  understand  the  religious  system  of  Ireland  pre- 
vious to  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  we  must  first  take  a  general 
survey  of  polytheism,  if  it  can  be  so  called,  in  all  Celtic  coun- 
tries, and  of  the  peculiar  character  which  it  bore  in  Ireland 
itself. 

Of  old,  throughout  all  countries,  religion  possessed  certain 
things  in  common,  which  belonged  to  the  rites  and  creeds  of  all 
nations,  and  were  evidently  derived  from  the  primitive  traditions 
of  mankind,  and,  consequently,  from  a  true  and  Divine  revela- 
tion. Such  were  the  belief  in  a  golden  age,  in  the  fall  from  a 
happy  beginning,  in  the  penalty  imposed  on  sin,  which  gave  a 
reason  for  great  mundane  calamities — the  Deluge  chiefly — the 
memory  of  which  lived  in  the  traditions  of  almost  every  nation ; 
in  the  necessity  of  prayer  and  expiatory  sacrifice ;  in  the  trans- 
mission of  guilt  from  father  to  son,  expressed  in  all  primitive 
legislations,  and  to  this  day  preserved  in  the  Chinese  laws  and 
customs ;  in  the  existence  of  good  and  bad  spirits,  whence,  most 
probably,  arose  polytheism;  in  the  hope- of  the  future  regen- 
eration of  man,  represented  in  Greece  by  the  beautiful  myth  of 
Pandora's  box ;  and,  finally,  in  the  doctrine  of  eternal  rewards 
and  punishments. 

Each  one  of  these  strictly  true  dogmas  underwent  more  or 
less  of  alteration  in  its  passage  through  the  various  nations  of 
antiquity,  but  was,  nevertheless,  everywhere  preserved  in  some 
shape  or  form. 

At  what  precise  epoch  did  mankind  begin  wrongfully  to  in- 
terpret these  primitive  traditions  ?  When  did  the  worship  of 
idols  arise  and  become  universal?  ~No  one  can  tell  precisely. 
All  we  know  for  certain  is,  that  a  thousand  years  before  Christ 
idolatry  prevailed  everywhere,  and  that  even  the  Jewish  people 
often  fell  into  this  sin,  and  were  only  brought  back  by  means  of 
punishment  to  the  worship  of  the  true  God. 

But  if  error  tainted  the  whole  system  of  worship  among  na- 
tions, it  differed  in  the  various  races  of  men  according  to  the 
variety  of  their  character.  Ferocity  or  mildness  of  manners, 
acuteness  or  obtuseness  of  understanding,  activity  or  indolence 
of  disposition,  a  burning,  a  cold,  or  a  temperate  climate,  a  smil- 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


69 


ing  or  dreary  country,  but  chiefly  the  thousand  differences  of 
temper  which  are  as  marked  among  mankind  as  the  almost  in- 
finite variety  of  forms  visible  in  creation,  gave  to  each  individual 
religion  its  proper  and  characteristic  types,  which  in  after-times, 
when  truth  was  brought  down  from  heaven  for  all,  imparted  to 
the  universal  Christian  spirit  a  peculiar  outward  form  in  each 
people,  an  interior  adaptation  to  its  peculiar  dispositions,  des- 
tined in  the  Divine  plan  to  introduce  into  the  future  Catholic 
Church  the  beautiful  variety  requisite  to  make  its  very  univer- 
sality possible  among  mankind. 

to  enter  into  details  on  the  Celtic  religion  would  carry  us 
beyond  due  limits.  The  question  as  to  whether  the  ancient 
Celts  were  idolaters  or  not  still  remains  undecided,  though  in 
France  alone  more  than  six  hundred  volumes  have  been  written 
on  the  subject.  Julius  Caesar  believed  that  they  were  worship- 
pers of  idols  in  the  same  sense  as  his  own  countrymen  ;  but  he 
probably  stood  alone  in  his  opinion.  Aristotle,  Pythagoras, 
rolyhistor,  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  considered  the  Druids  as 
monotheist  philosophers.  Most  of  the  Greek  writers  agreed  with 
them,  as  did  all  the  Alexandrian  Fathers  of  the  Church  in  the 
third  and  fourth  centuries. 

Among  the  moderns  the  majority  leans  to  a  contrary  opin- 
ion ;  nevertheless,  many  authors  of  weight,  distinguishing  the 
public  worship  of  the  common  people  from  the  doctrine  of  the 
Druids,  assert  the  monotheism  of  this  sacerdotal  caste.  Samuel 
F.  IS".  Morus  particularly,  who,  with  J.  A.  Ernesti,  was  esteemed 
the  master  of  antiquarian  scholarship  in  Europe  during  the  last 
century,  maintains,  in  his  edition  of  the  "  Commentaries  "  of 
Caesar,  that  "  human  beings,  as  well  as  human  affairs,  fortunes, 
travels,  and  wars,  were  thought  by  the  Celts  to  be  governed  and 
ruled  by  one  supreme  God,  and  that  the  system  of  apotheosis, 
common  to  nearly  all  ancient  nations,  was  totally  unknown  in 
ancient  Gaul,  Britain,  and  the  adjacent  islands." 

The  ancient  authorities  concurring  with  these  conclusions  are 
so  numerous  and  clear  spoken  that  the  great  historian  of  Gaul, 
Amedee  Thierry,  thinks  that  such  a  pure  and  mystic  religion, 
joined  to  such  a  sublime  philosophy,  could  not  have  been  the 
product  of  the  soil.  In  his  endeavor  to  investigate  its  origin,  he 
supposes  that  it  was  brought  to  the  west  of  Europe  by  the  East- 
ern Cymris  of  the  first  invasion ;  that  it  was  adopted  by  the 
higher  classes  of  society,  and  that  the  old  idolatrous  worship  re- 
mained in  force  among  the  lower  orders. 

The  unity  and  omnipotence  of  the  Godhead,  metempsychosis, 
or  the  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls — not  into  the 
bodies  of  animals,  as  it  obtained  and  still  obtains  in  the  East, 
but  into  those  of  other  human  beings — the  eternal  duration  of 
existing  substances,  material  and  spiritual,  consequently  the  im- 


70 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


mortality  of  the  human  soul,  were  the  chief  dogmas  of  the  Druids, 
according  to  the  majority  of  antiquarians. 

If  this  be  true,  then  it  can  be  said  boldly  that,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  revealed  religion  in  Judea,  which  was  always  far  more 
explicit  and  pure,  no  system  can  be  found  in  ancient  times 
superior  to  that  of  the  Druids,  more  especially  if  we  add  that, 
in  addition  to  religious  teaching,  a  whole  system  of  physics  was 
also  developed  in  their  large  academies.  "  They  dispute,"  says 
Caesar,  "  on  the  stars  and  their  motions,  on  the  size  of  the  uni- 
verse and  of  this  earth,  on  the  nature  of  physical  things,  as  well 
as  on  the  strength  and  power  of  the  eternal  God." 

To  bring  our  question  home,  what  were  the  religious  belief 
and  worship  of  the  Irish  Celts  while  still  pagans  I  Yery  few 
positive  facts  are  known  on  the  subject ;  but  we  have  data 
enough  to  show  what  they  were  not :  and  in  such  cases  nega- 
tive  proofs  are  amply  sufficient. 

It  was  for  a  long  time  the  fashion  with  Irish  historians  to 
attribute  to  their  ancestors  the  wildest  forms  of  ancient  idolatry. 
They  appeared  to  consider  it  a  point  of  national  honor  to  mate 
the  worship  of  Erin  an  exact  reflex  of  Eastern,  Grecian,  or  Roman 
polytheism.  They  erected  on  the  slightest  foundations  grand 
structures  of  superstitious  and  abominable  rites.  Fire-worship, 
Phoenician  or  African  horrors,  the  rankest  idol-worship,  even 
human  sacrifices  of  the  most  revolting  nature,  were,  according 
to  them,  of  almost  daily  occurrence  in  Ireland.  But,  with  the 
advancement  of  antiquarian  knowledge,  all  those  phantoms  have 
successively  disappeared;  and,  the  more  the  ancient  customs, 
literature,  and  history  of  the  island  are  studied,  the  more  it  be- 
comes clear  that  the  pretended  proofs  adduced  in  support  of  those 
vagaries  are  really  without  foundation. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to  believe 
that  the  human  sacrifices  customary  in  Gaul  were  ever  practised 
in  Ireland.  No  really  ancient  book  makes  any  mention  of  them. 
They  were  certainly  not  in  vogue  at  the  time  of  St.  Patrick,  as 
he  could  not  have  tailed  to  give  expression  to  his  horror  at  them 
in  some  shape  or  form,  which  expression  would  have  been  re- 
corded in  one,  at  least,  of  the  many  lives  of  the  saint,  written 
shortly  after  his  death,  and  abounding  in  details  of  every  kind. 
If  not,  then,  during  his  long  apostleship,  we  may  safely  conclude 
that  they  never  took  place  before,  as  there  was  no  reason  for 
their  discontinuance  prior  to  the  propagation  of  Christianity. 

There  was  a  time  when  all  the  large  cromlechs  which  abound 
in  the  island  were  believed  to  be  sacrificial  stones ;  and  it  is 
highly  probable  that  the  opinion  60  prevalent  during  the  last 
century  with  respect  to  the  reality  of  those  cruel  rites  had  its 
origin  in  the  existence  of  those  rude  monuments.  After  many 
investigations  and  excavations  around  and  under  cromlechs  of 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


71 


all  sizes,  it  is  now  admitted  by  all  well-informed  antiquarians 
that  they  had  no  connection  with  sacrifices  of  any  kind.  They 
were  merely  monuments  raised  over  the  buried  bodies  of  chief- 
tains or  heroes.  Many  sepulchres  of  that  description  have  been 
opened,  either  under  cromlechs  or  under  large  mounds ;  great 
quantities  of  ornaments  of  gold,  silver,  or  precious  stones,  uten- 
sils of  various  materials,  beautiful  works  of  great  artistic  merit, 
have  been  discovered  there,  and  now  go  to  fill  the  museums  of 
the  nation  or  private  cabinets.  Nothing  connected  with  reli- 
gious rites  of  any  description  has  met  the  eyes  of  the  learned 
seekers  after  truth.  Thus  it  has  been  ascertained  that  the  old 
race  had  reached  a  high  degree  of  material  civilization;  but  no 
clew  to  its  religion  has  been  furnished. 

As  to  fire-worship,  which  not  long  ago  was  admitted  by  all 
as  certainly  forming  a  part  of  the  Celtic  religion  in  Ireland,  so 
little  of  that  opinion  remains  to-day  that  it  is  scarcely  deserving 
of  mention.  There  now  remains  no  doubt  that  the  round  tow- 
ers, formerly  so  numerous  in  Ireland,  had  nothing  whatever  to 
do  with  fire-worship.  For  a  long  time  they  were  believed  to 
have  been  constructed  for  no  other  object,  and  consequently 
long  prior  to  the  coming  of  St.  Patrick.  But  Dr.  Petrie  and 
other  antiquarians  have  all  but  demonstrated  that  the  round  tow- 
ers never  had  any  connection  with  superstition  or  idolatry  at  all ; 
that  they  were  of  Christian  origin,  always  built  near  some  Chris- 
tian church,  and  of  the  same  materials,  and  had  for  their  object 
to  call  the  faithful  to  prayer,  like  the  campanile  of  Italy,  to  be  a 
place  of  refuge  for  the  clergy  in  time  of  war,  and  to  give  to  dis- 
tant villages  intimation  of  any  hostile  invasion. 

The  fact  in  the  life  of  St.  Patrick,  when  he  appeared  before 
the  court  of  King  Laeghaire,  upon  which  so  much  reliance  is 
placed  as  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  fire-worship,  is  now  of  pro- 
portionate weakness.  It  seems,  to  judge  by  the  most  reliable 
and  ancient  manuscripts,  that,  after  all,  the  kindling  of  the  king's 
fire  was  scarcely  a  religious  act. 

McGeoghegan,  whose  history  is  compiled  from  the  best-au- 
thenticated documents,  says  :  "  When  the  monarch  convened  an 
assembly,  or  held  a  festival  at  Tara,  it  was  customary  to  make  a 
bonfire  on  the  preceding  day,  and  it  was  forbidden  to  light  an- 
other fire  in  any  other  place  at  the  same  time,  in  the  territory 
of  Breagh." 

This  is  all ;  and  the  probable  cause  of  the  prohibition  was  to 
do  honor  to  the  king.  Had  it  been  an  act  of  worship,  Patrick, 
in  lighting  his  own  paschal-fire,  would  not  only  have  shown  dis- 
respect to  the  monarch,  but  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  committed 
a  sacrilege,  which  could  scarcely  have  missed  mention  by  the 
careful  historians  of  the  time. 

But  the  proof  that  we  are  right  in  our  interpretation  of  the 


72 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


ceremony  is  clear,  from  the  following  passage,  taken  from  the 
work  of  Prof.  Curry  on  "  Early  Irish  Manuscripts : "  "  We  see, 
by  the  book  of  military  expeditions,  that,  when  King  Dathi — 
the  immediate  predecessor  of  Laeghaire  on  the  throne  of  Ire- 
land— thought  of  conquering  Britain  and  Gaul,  he  invited  the 
states  of  the  nation  to  meet  him  at  Tara,  at  the  approaching 
feast  of  Baltaine  (one  of  the  great  pagan  festivals  of  ancient 
Erin)  on  May-day. 

"  The  feast  of  Tara  this  year  was  solemnized  on  a  scale  of 
splendor  never  before  equalled.  The  fires  of  Lailten  (now  called 
Lelltown  in  the  north  of  Ireland)  were  lighted,  and  the  sports, 
games,  and  ceremonies,  were  conducted  with  unusual  magnifi- 
cence and  solemnity. 

"  These  games  and  solemnities  are  said  to  have  been  insti- 
tuted more  than  a  thousand  years  previously  by  Lug,  in  honor 
of  Lailte,  the  daughter  of  the  King  of  Spain,  and  wife  of  Mac- 
Eire,  the  last  king  of  the  Firbolg  colony.  It  was  at  her  court 
that  Lug  had  been  fostered,  and  at  her  death  he  had  her  buried 
at  this  place,  where  he  raised  an  immense  mound  over  her  grave, 
and  instituted  those  annual  games  in  her  honor. 

"  These  games  were  solemnized  about  the  first  day  of  Au- 
gust, and  they  continued  to  be  observed  down  to  the  ninth  cen 
tury"  —  therefore,  in  Christian  times  —  and  consequently  the 
lighting  of  the  fires  had  as  little  connection  with  fire-worship  as 
the  games  with  pagan  rites. 

A  more  serious  difficulty  meets  us  in  the  destruction  of  Crom 
Cruagh  by  St.  Patrick,  and  it  is  important  to  consider  how  far 
Crom  Cruagh  could  really  be  called  an  idol. 

With  regard  to  the  statues  of  Celtic  gods,  all  the  researches 
and  excavations  which  the  most  painstaking  of  antiquarians  have 
undertaken,  especially  of  late  years,  have  never  resulted  in  the 
discovery,  not  of  the  statue  of  a  god,  but  of  any  pagan  sign 
whatever  in  Ireland.  It  is  clear,  from  the  numerous  details  of 
the  life  of  St.  Patrick,  that  he  never  encountered  either  temples 
or  the  statues  of  gods  in  any  place,  although  occasional  mention 
is  made  of  idols.  The  only  fact  which  startles  the  reader  is  the 
holy  zeal  which  moved  him  to  strike  with  his  "baculus  Jesu" 
the  monstrous  Crom  Cruagh,  with  its  twelve  "  sub-gods." 

In  all  his  travels  through  Ireland — and  there  is  scarcely  a 
spot  which  he  did  not  visit  and  evangelize — St.  Patrick  meets 
with  only  one  idol,  or  rather  group  of  idols,  situated  in  the 
County  Cavan,  which  was  an  object  of  veneration  to  the  people. 
Nowhere  else  are  idols  to  be  found,  or  the  saint  would  -have 
thought  it  his  duty  to  destroy  them  also.  This  first  fact  cer- 
tainly places  the  Irish  in  a  position,  with  regard  to  idolatry,  far 
different  from  that  of  all  other  polytheist  nations.  In  all  other 
countries  it  is  characteristic  of  polytheism  to  multiply  the  stat- 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIAN!  TY. 


73 


ties  of  the  gods,  to  expose  them  in  all  public  places,  in  their 
houses,  but  chiefly  within  or  at  the  door  01  edifices  erected  for  the 
purpose.  Yet  in  Ireland  we  find  nothing  of  the  kind,  with  the 
exception  of  Crom  Cruagh.  The  holy  apostle  of  the  nation  goes 
on  preaching,  baptizing,  converting  people,  without  finding  any 
worship  of  gods  of  stone  or  metal ;  he  only  hears  that  there  is 
something  of  the  kind  in  a  particular  spot,  and  he  has  to  travel 
a  great  distance  in  order  to  see  it,  and  show  the  people  their  folly 
in  venerating  it. 

But  what  was  that  idol  ?  According  to  the  majority  of  ex- 
pounders of  Irish  history,  it  was  a  golden  sphere  or  ball  repre- 
senting the  sun,  with  twelve  cones  or  pillars  of  brass  around  it, 
typifying,  probably,  astronomical  signs.  St.  Patrick,  in  his 
"  Confessio,"  seems  to  allude  to  Crom  Cruagh  when  he  says : 
"  That  sun  which  we  behold  by  the  favor  ot  God  rises  for  us 
every  day  ;  but  its  splendor  will  not  shine  forever ;  nay,  even 
all  those  who  adore  it  shall  be  miserably  punished." 

The  Bollandists,  in  a  note  on  this  passage  of  the  "  Confes- 
sio," think  that  it  might  refer  to  Crom  Cruagh,  which  possibly 
represented  the  sun,  surrounded  by  the  signs  of  the  twelve 
months,  through  which  it  describes  its  orbit  during  the  year. 

We  know  that  the  Druids  were,  perhaps,  better  versed  in  the 
science  of  astronomy  than  the  scholars  of  any  other  nation  at  the 
time.  It  was  not  in  Gaul  and  Britain  only  that  they  pursued 
their  course  of  studies  for  a  score  of  years  ;  the  same  fact  is  at- 
tested for  Ireland  by  authorities  whose  testimony  is  beyond 
question.  May  we  not  suppose  that  a  representation  of  mere 
heavenly  phenomena,  set  in  a  conspicuous  position,  had  in  course 
of  time  become  the  object  of  the  superstitious  veneration  of  the 
people,  and  that  St.  Patrick  thought  it  his  duty  to  destroy  it? 
And  the  attitude  of  the  people  at  the  time  of  its  destruction 
shows  that  it  could  not  have  borne  for  them  the  same  sacred 
character  as  the  statue  of  Minerva  in  the  Parthenon  did  for  the 
Greeks  or  that  of  Capitoline  Jove  for  the  Romans.  Can  we 
suppose  that  St.  Paul  or  St.  Peter  would  have  dared  to  break 
either  of  these  %  And  let  us  remark  that  the  event  we  discuss 
occurred  at  the  very  beginning  of  St.  Patrick's  ministry,  and 
before  he  had  yet  acquired  that  great  authority  over  the  minds 
of  all  which  afterward  enabled  him  fearlessly  to  accomplish  what- 
ever his  zeal  prompted  him  to  do. 

Whatever  explanation  of  the  whole  occurrence  maybe  given, 
we  doubt  if  we  shall  find  a  better  than  that  we  advance,  and  the 
considerations  arising  from  it  justify  the  opinion  that  the  Irish 
Celts  were  not  idolaters  like  all  other  peoples  of  antiquity.  They 
ossessed  no  mythology  beyond  harmless  fairy-tales,  no  poetical 
istories  of  gods  and  goddesses  to  please  the  imagination  and 
the  senses,  and  invest  paganism  with  such  an  attractive  garb  as 


74 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


to  cause  it  to  become  a  real  obstacle  to  the  spread  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

Moreover,  what  we  have  said  concerning  the  belief  in  the 
omnipotence  of  one  supreme  God,  whatever  might  be  his  nature, 
as  the  first  dogma  of  Bruidism,  would  seem  to  have  lain  deep  in 
the  minds  of  the  Irish  Celts,  and  caused  their  immediate  com- 
prehension and  reception  of  monotheism,  as  preached  by  St. 
Patrick,  and  the  facility  with  which  they  accepted  it.  they 
were  certainly,  even  when  pagans,  a  very  religious  people; 
otherwise  how  could  they  have  embraced  the  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity  with  that  ardent  eagerness  which  shall  come  under  our 

\  mm 

consideration  in  the  next  chapter?  A  nation  utterly  devoid  of 
faith  of  any  kind  is  not  apt  to  be  moved,  as  were  the  Irish,  per- 
haps beyond  all  other  nations,  at  the  first  sight  of  supernatural 
truths,  such  as  those  of  Christianity.  And  so  little  were  they 
attached  to  paganism,  so  visibly  imbued  with  reverence  for  the 
supreme  God  of  the  universe,  that,  as  soon  as  announced,  they 
accepted  the  dogma. 

The  simple  and  touching  story  of  the  conversion  of  the  two 
daughters  of  King  Laeghaire  will  give  point  and  life  to  this  very 
important  consideration.  It  is  taken  from  the  "  Book  of  Ar- 
magh," which  Prof.  O'Curry,  who  is  certainly  a  competent 
authority,  believes  older  than  the  year  727,  when  the  popular 
Irish  traditions  regarding  St.  Patrick  must  have  still  been  almost 
as  vivid  as  immediately  after  bis  death. 

St.  Patrick  and  his  attendants  being  assembled  at  sunrise  at 
the  fountain  of  Clebach,  near  Cruachan  in  Connaught,  Ethne 
and  Pelimia,  daughters  of  King  Laeghaire,  came  to  bathe,  and 
found  at  the  well  the  holy  men. 

"  And  they  knew  not  whence  they  were,  or  in  what  form,  or 
from  what  people,  or  from  what  country ;  but  they  supposed 
them  to  be  fairies — duine  sidhe — that  is  to  say,  gods  of  the 
earth,  or  a  phantasm. 

"  And  the  virgins  said  unto  them :  1  Who  are  ve,  and  whence 
are  ye  s 

"  And  Patrick  said  unto  them :  i  It  were  better  for  you  to 
confess  to  our  true  God,  than  to  inquire  concerning  our  race.' 
"  The  first  virgin  said  :  4  Who  is  God  ? 
" c  And  where  is  God  ? 
" c  And  where  is  his  dwelling-place  ? 
" 4  Has  God  sons  and  daughters,  gold  and  silver  ? 
" 4  Is  he  living  ? 
"<Is  he  beautiful? 
tt '  Did  many  foster  his  son  ? 

"'Are  his  daughters  dear  and  beauteous  to  men  of  this 
world  ? 

" 4  Is  he  in  heaven  or  on  earth  ? 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


75 


"'In  the  sea? — In  rivers? — In  mountainous  places? — In 
valleys  ? 

" i  Declare  unto  us  the  knowledge  of  him  ? 

"  '  How  shall  he  be  seen  ? — How  shall  he  be  loved  ? — How  is 
he  to  be  found  ? 

" '  Is  it  in  youth  ? — Is  it  in  old  age  that  he  is  to  be  found  ? ' 

"  But  St.  Jratrick,  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  answered  and  said  : 

" 1  Our  God  is  the  God  of  all  men — the  God  of  heaven  and 
earth — of  the  sea  and  rivers.  The  God  of  the  sun,  and  the 
moon,  and  all  stars.  The  God  of  the  high  mountains,  and  of  the 
lowly  valleys.  The  God  who  is  above  heaven,  and  in  heaven, 
and  under  heaven. 

" i  He  has  a  habitation  in  the  heavens,  and  the  earth,  and  the 
sea,  and  all  that  are  thereon. 

" £  He  inspireth  all  things.  He  quickeneth  all  things.  He 
is  over  all  things. 

"  '  He  hath  a  Son  coeternal  and  coequal  with  himself.  The 
Son  is  not  younger  than  the  Father,  nor  the  Father  older  than 
the  Son.  And  the  Holy  Ghost  breatheth  in  them.  The  Father, 
and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  are  not  divided. 

"  c  But  I  desire  to  unite  you  to  a  heavenly  King  inasmuch 
as  you  are  daughters  of  an  earthly  king.    Do  you  believe  ? ' 

"  And  the  virgins  said,  as  of  one  mouth  and  one  heart : 
'  Teach  us  most  diligently  how  we  may  believe  in  the  heavenly 
King.  Show  us  how  we  may  see  him  face  to  face,  and  whatso- 
ever you  shall  say  unto  us  we  will  do.' 

"  And  Patrick  said  :  6  Believe  ye  that  by  baptism  you  put  off 
the  sin  of  your  father  and  your  mother  ? ' 

"  They  answered  him,  6  We  believe.' 

" 6  Believe  ye  in  repentance  after  sin  ? '  '  We  believe  .  .  .'  etc. 

"  And  they  were  baptized,  and  a  white  garment  was  put 
upon  their  heads.  And  they  asked  to  see  the  face  of  Christ. 
And  the  saint  said  unto  them :  '  Ye  cannot  see  the  face  of  Christ 
except  ye  taste  of  death,  and  except  ye  receive  the  sacrifice.' 

"  Arid  they  answered :  6  Give  us  the  sacrifice  that  we  may 
behold  the  Son  our  spouse.' 

"  And  they  received  the  eucharist  of  God,  and  they  slept  in 
death. 

"  And  they  were  laid  out  on  one  bed — covered  with  garments 
— and  their  friends  made  great  lamentations  and  weeping  for 
them/' 

This  beautiful  legend  expresses  to  the  letter  the  way  in 
which  the  Irish  received  the  faith.  ISTor  was  it  simple  virgins 
only  who  understood  and  believed  so  suddenly  at  the  preaching 
of  the  apostle.  The  great  men  of  the  nation  were  as  eager 
almost  as  the  common  people  to  receive  baptism :  the  conver  • 
sion  of  Dubtach  is  enough  to  show  this. 


76 


PPwEPAKATIOX  FOPw  CHRISTIANITY. 


He  was  a  Druid,  being  the  chief  poet  of  King  Laeghaire — all 
poets  belonging  to  the  order.  After  the  wife,  the  brothers,  and 
the  two  daughters  of  the  monarch,  he  was  the  most  illustrious 
convert  gained  by  Patrick  at  the  beginning  of  his  apostleship. 
He  became  a  Christian  at  the  first  appearance  of  the  saint  at 
Tara,  and  immediately  began  to  sing  in  verse  his  new  belief,  as 
he  had  formerly  sung  the  heroes  of  his  nation.  To  the  end  he 
remained  firm  in  his  faith,  and  a  dear  friend  to  the  holy  man 
who  had  converted  him.  How  could  he,  and  all  the  chief  con- 
verts of  Patrick,  have  believed  so  suddenly  and  so  constantly  in 
the  God  of  the  Christians,  if  their  former  life  had  not  prepared 
them  for  the  adoption  of  the  new  doctrine,  and  if  the  doctrine 
of  monotheism  had  offered  a  real  difficulty  to  their  understand- 
ing ?  There  was,  probably,  nothing  clear  and  definite  in  their 
belief  in  an  omnipotent  God,  which  is  said  to  have  been  the 
leading  dogma  of  Druidism ;  but  their  simple  minds  had  evi- 
dently a  leaning  toward  the  doctrine,  which  induced  them  to 
approve  of  it,  as  soon  as  it  was  presented  to  them  with  a  solemn 
affirmation. 

In  order  to  elucidate  this  point,  we  add  a  short  description 
of  the  labors  and  success  of  this  apostle. 

In  the  year  -±32,  Patrick  lands  on  the  island.  By  that  time, 
some  few  of  the  inhabitants  may  possibly  have  heard  of  the 
Christian  religion  from  the  neighboring  Britain  or  Gaul.  Palla- 
dius  had  preached  the  year  before  in  the  district  known  as  the 
present  counties  of  Wexford  and  Wicklow,  erected  three  churches, 
and  made  some  converts ;  but  it  may  be  said  that  Ireland  con- 
tinued in  the  same  state  it  had  preserved  for  thousands  of  years : 
the  Druids  in  possession  of  religious  and  scientific  supremacy ; 
the  chieftains  in  contention,  as  in  the  time  of  Fingal  and  Ossian ; 
the  people,  though  in  the  midst  of  constant  strife,  happy  enough 
on  their  rich  soil,  cheered  by  their  bards  and  poets ;  very  few,  or 
no  slaves  in  the  country;  an  abundance  of  food  everywhere; 
gold,  silver,  precious  stones,  adorning  profusely  the  persons  of 
their  chiefs,  their  wives,  their  warriors ;  rich  stuffs,  dyed  with 
many  colors,  to  distinguish  the  various  orders  of  society ;  a  deep 
religious  feeling  in  their  hearts,  preparing  them  for  the  faith,  by 
inspiring  them  with  lively  emotions  at  the  sight  of  divine  power 
displayed  in  their  mountains,  their  valleys,  their  lakes  and  riv- 
ers, and  on  the  swelling  bosom  of  the  all-encircling  ocean ;  su- 
perstitions of  various  kinds,  indeed,  but  none  of  a  demoralizing 
character,  none  involving  marks  of  cruelty  or  lust ;  no  revolting 
6tatues  of  Priapus,  of  Bacchus,  of  Cybele ;  no  obscene  emblems 
of  religion,  as  in  all  other  lands,  to  confront  Christianity ;  but 
over  all  the  island,  song,  festivity,  deep  affection  for  kindred ; 
and,  as  though  blood-relationship  could  not  satisfy  their  heart, 
fosterage  covering  the  land  with  other  brothers  and  sisters ;  all 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


77 


permeated  with  a  strong  attachment  to  their  clan-system  and  so- 
cial customs.  Such  is  an  exact  picture  of  the  Erin  of  the  time, 
which  the  study  of  antiquity  brings  clearer  and  clearer  before  the 
eyes  of  the  modern  student. 

Patrick  appears  among  them,  leaning  on  his  staff,  and  bring- 
ing them  from  Rome  and  Gaul  new  songs  in  a  new  language  set 
to  a  new  melody.  He  comes  to  unveil  for  them  what  lies  hid- 
den, unknown  to  themselves,  in  the  depths  of  their  hearts.  He 
explains,  by  the  power  of  one  Supreme  God,  why  it  is  that  their 
mountains  are  so  high,  their  valleys  so  smiling,  their  rivers  and 
lakes  teeming  with  life,  their  fountains  so  fresh  and  cool,  and 
that  sun  of  theirs  so  temperate  in  its  warmth,  and  the  moon  and 
stars,  lighted  with  a  soft  radiance,  shimmering  over  the  deep 
obscurity  of  their  groves. 

He  directs  them  to  look  into  their  own  consciences,  to  admit 
themselves  to  be  sinners  in  need  of  redemption,  and  points  out 
to  them  in  what  manner  that  Supreme  God,  whom  they  half 
knew  already,  condescended  to  save  man. 

Straightway,  from  all  parts  of  the  island,  converts  flock  to 
him ;  they  come  in  crowds  to  be  baptized,  to  embrace  the  new 
law  by  which  they  may  read  their  own  hearts ;  they  are  ready  to 
do  whatever  he  wishes  ;  many,  not  content  with  the  strict  com- 
mandments enjoined  on  all,  wish  to  enter  on  the  path  of  perfec- 
tion :  the  men  become  monks,  the  women  and  young  girls  nuns, 
that  is  to  say,  spouses  of  Christ.  In  Munster  alone  "  it  would  be 
difficult,"  says  a  modern  writer,  Father  Brenan,  "to  form  an 
estimate  of  the  number  of  converts  he  made,  and  even  of  the 
churches  and  religious  establishments  he  founded." 

And  so  with  all  the  other  provinces  of  the  island.  The 
proofs  still  stand  before  our  eyes.  For,  as  Prof.  Curry  justly 
remarks :  "  No  one,  who  examines  for  himself,  can  doubt  that  at 
the  first  preaching  in  Erin  of  the  glad  tidings  of  salvation,  by 
Saints  Palladius  and  Patrick,  those  countless  Christian  churches 
were  built,  whose  sites  and  ruins  mark  so  thickly  the  surface  of 
our  country  even  to  this  day,  still  bearing  through  all  the  vicis- 
situdes of  time  and  conquest  the  unchanged  names  of  their  origi- 
nal founders" 

According  to  the  commonly-received  opinion,  St.  Patrick's 
apostleship  lasted  thirty-three  years ;  but,  whatever  may  have 
been  its  real  duration,  certain  it  is  that  his  feet  traversed  the 
whole  island  several  times,  and,  at  his  passing,  churches  and  mon- 
asteries sprang  up  in  great  numbers,  and  remained  to  tell  the 
true  story  of  his  labors  when  their  founder  had  passed  away. 

ISor  was  it  with  Ireland  as  with  Rome,  Carthage,  Antioch, 
and  other  great  cities  of  Europe,  Africa,  and  Asia.  Not  the  slaves 
and  artisans  alone  filled  these  newly-erected  Christian  edifices. 
Some  of  the  first  men  of  the  nation  received  baptism.    We  have 


78 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


already  spoken  of  the  family  of  Laeghaire.  In  Connaught,  at 
the  first  appearance  of  the  man  of  God,  all  the  inhabitants  of 
that  portion  of  the  province  now  represented  by  the  County 
Mayo  became  Christians ;  and  the  seven  sons  of  the  king  of  the 
province  were  baptized,  together  with  twelve  thousand  of  their 
clansmen.  In  Leinster,  the  Princes  llland  and  Alind  were  bap- 
tized in  a  fountain  near  Naas.  In  Munster,  Aengus,  the  King 
of  Cashel,  with  all  the  nobility  of  his  clan,  embraced  the  faith. 
A  number  of  chieftains  in  Thomond  are  also  mentioned ;  and 
the  whole  of  the  Dalcassian  tribe,  so  celebrated  before  and  after 
in  the  annals  of  Ireland,  received,  with  the  waters  of  baptism, 
that  ardent  faith  which  nothing  has  been  able  to  tear  from  them 
to  this  day. 

Many  Druids  even,  by  renouncing  their  superstitions,  abdi- 
cated their  power  over  the  people.  vVe  have  mentioned  Dub- 
tach ;  his  example  was  followed  by  many  others,  among  whom 
was  Fingar,  the  son  of  King  Clito,  who  is  said  to  have  suffered 
martyrdom  in  Brittany  ;  Fiech,  pupil  of  Dubtach,  himself  a 
poet,  and  belonging  to  the  noble  house  of  Hy-Baircha  in  Lein- 
ster, was  raised  by  St.  Patrick  to  the  episcopacy,  and  was  the  first 
occupant  of  the  See  of  Sletty. 

Fiech  was  a  regular  member  of  the  bardic  order  of  Druids,  a 
poet  by  profession,  esteemed  as  a  learned  man  even  before  he 
embraced  Christianity  ;  and  during  his  lifetime  he  was,  as  a 
Christian  bishop,  consulted  by  numbers  and  regarded  as  an  ora- 
cle of  truth  and  heavenly  wisdom. 

Nevertheless,  Patrick  encountered  opposition.  Some  chief- 
tains declared  themselves  against  him,  without  daring  openly  to 
attack  him.  Many  Druids,  called  in  the  old  Irish  annals  magi, 
tried  their  utmost  to  estrange  the  Irish  people  from  him.  But 
he  stood  in  danger  of  his  life  only  once.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  war 
of  argument.  Long  discussions  took  place,  with  varied  success, 
ending  generally,  however,  in  a  victory  for  truth. 

The  final  result  was  that,  in  the  second  generation  after  St. 
Patrick,  there  existed  not  a  single  pagan  in  the  whole  of  Ire- 
land ;  the  very  remembrance  of  paganism  even  seemed  to  have 
passed  away  from  their  minds  ever  after  ;  hence  arises  the  diffi- 
culty of  deciding  now  on  the  character  of  that  paganism. 

After  its  abolition,  nothing  remained  in  the  literature  of  the 
country,  which  was  at  that  time  much  more  copious  than  at 
present — nothing  was  left  in  its  monuments  or  in  the  inclina- 
tions of  the  people — to  imperil  the  existence  of  the  newly-estab- 
lished Christianity,  or  of  a  nature  calculated  to  give  a  wrong 
bias  to  the  religious  worship  of  the  people,  such  as  we  have  seen 
was  the  case  in  the  rest  of  Europe. 

May  we  not  conclude,  then,  that  Ireland  was  much  better 
prepared  for  the  new  religion  than  any  other  country ;  that, 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


79 


when  she  was  thus  admitted  by  baptism  into  the  European 
family,  she  made  her  entry  in  a  way  peculiar  to  herself,  and 
which  secured  to  her,  once  for  all,  her  firm  and  undeviating  at- 
tachment to  truth  ? 

She  had  nothing  to  change  in  her  manners  after  having 
renounced  the  few  disconnected  superstitions  to  which  she  had 
been  addicted.  Her  songs,  her  bards,  her  festivities,  her  patri- 
archal government,  her  fosterage,  were  left  to  her,  Christianized 
and  consecrated  by  her  great  apostle  ;  clanship  even  penetrated 
into  the  monasteries,  and  gave  rise  later  on  to  some  abuses. 
But,  perhaps,  the  saint  thought  it  better  to  allow  the  existence 
of  things  which  might  lead  to  abuse  than  violently  and  at  once 
to  subvert  customs,  rooted  by  age  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
people,  some  of  which  it  cost  England,  later  on,  centuries  of  in- 
conceivable barbarities  to  eradicate. 

As  to  what  exact  form,  if  any,  the  paganism  of  the  Irisn 
Celts  assumed,  we  have  so  few  data  to  build  upon  that  it  is  now 
next  to  impossible  to  shape  a  system  out  of  them.  From  the 
passage  of  the  "  Confessio  "  already  quoted,  we  might  infer  that 
they  adored  the  sun ;  and  this  passage  is  very  remarkable  as  the 
only  mention  anywhere  made  by  St.  Patrick  of  idolatry  among 
the  people.  If  it  was  only  the  emblem  of  the  Supreme  Being, 
then  would  there  have  been  nothing  idolatrous  in  its  worship  ; 
and  the  strong  terms  in  which  the  saint  condemns  it  perhaps 
need  only  express  his  fear  lest  the  superstition  of  the  ignorant 
people  might  convert  veneration  into  positive  idolatry.  At  all 
events,  there  was  not  a  statue,  or  a  temple,  or  a  theological  sys- 
tem, erected  to  or  connected  with  it  in  any  shape. 

The  solemn  forms  of  oaths  taken  and  administered  by  the 
Irish  kings  would  also  lead  us  to  infer  that  they  paid  a  supersti- 
tious respect  to  the  winds  and  the  other  elements.  But  why 
should  this  feeling  pass  beyond  that  which  even  the  Christian 
experiences  when  confronted  by  mysteries  in  the  natural  as  well 
as  the  supernatural  order  ?  The  awe-struck  pagan  saw  the  light- 
ning leap,  the  tempest  gather  and  break  over  him  in  majestic 
fury  ;  heard  the  great  voice  of  the  mighty  ocean  which  laved  or 
lashed  his  shores  :  he  witnessed  these  wonderful  effects ;  he  knew 
not  whence  the  tempests  or  the  lightnings  came,  or  the  voice  of 
the  ocean  ;  he  trembled  at  the  unseen  power  which  moved  them 
— at  his  God. 

So  his  imagination  peopled  his  groves  and  hill-sides,  his 
rivers  and  lakes,  with  harmless  fairies  ;  but  fairy  land  has  never 
become  among  any  nation  a  pandemonium  of  cruel  divinities ; 
and  we  doubt  much  if  such  innocuous  superstition  can  be  rightly 
called  even  sinful  error. 

In  fact,  the  only  thing  which  could  render  paganism  truly  a 
danger  in  Ireland,  as  opposed  to  the  preaching  of  Christianity, 


80 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


was  the  body  of  men  intrusted  with  the  care  of  religion — the 
Druids,  the  magi  of  the  chronicles.  But,  as  we  find  no  traces 
of  bloody  sacrifices  in  Ireland,  the  Druids  there  probably  never 
bore  the  character  which  they  did  in  Gaul ;  they  cannot  be  said 
to  have  been  sacrificing  priests ;  their  office  consisted  merely  in 
pretended  divinations,  or  the  workings  of  incantations  or  spells. 
They  also  introduced  superstition  into  the  practice  of  medicine, 
and  taught  the  people  to  venerate  the  elements  or  mysterious 
forces  of  this  world. 

Without  mentioning  any  of  the  many  instances  which  are 
found  in  the  histories  of  the  workings  of  these  Druidical  incan- 
tations  and  spells,  the  consulting  of  the  clouds,  and  the  cere- 
monies with  which  they  surrounded  their  healing  art,  we  go 
straight  to  our  main  point :  the  ease  and  suddenness  with  which 
all  these  delusions  vanished  at  the  first  preaching  of  the  Gospel 
— a  fact  very  telling  on  the  force  which  they  exercised  over 
the  mind  of  the  nation.  All  natural  customs,  games,  festivities, 
social  relationships,  as  we  have  seen,  are  preserved,  many  to  this 
day  ;  what  is  esteemed  as  their  religion,  and  its  ceremonies  and 
superstitions,  is  dropped  at  once.  The  entire  Irish  mind  ex- 
panded freely  and  generously  at  the  simple  announcement  of  a 
God,  present  everywhere  in  the  universe,  and  accepted  it.  The 
dogma  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  not  only  filling  all — comjplens  omnia — 
but  dwelling  in  their  very  souls  by  grace,  and  filling  them  with 
love  and  fear,  must  have  appeared  natural  to  them.  Their  very 
superstitions  must  have  prepared  the  way  for  the  truth,  a  change 
— or  may  we  not  say  a  more  direct  and  tangible  object  taking 
the  place  of  and  filling  their  undefined  yearnings — was  alone 
requisite.  Otherwise  it  is  a  hard  fact  to  explain  how,  within  a 
few  years,  all  Druidism  and  magic,  incantations,  spells,  and  divi- 
nations, were  replaced  by  pure  religion,  by  the  doctrine  of  celes- 
tial favors  obtained  through  prayer,  by  the  intercession  of  a  host 
of  saints  in  heaven,  and  the  belief  in  Christian  miracles  and 
prophecies ;  whereas,  scarcely  any  thing  of  Roman  or  Grecian 
mythology  could  be  replaced  by  corresponding  Christian  prac- 
tices, although  popes  did  all  they  could  in  that  regard.  Nearly 
all  the  errors  of  the  Irish  Celts  had  their  corresponding  truths 
and  holy  practices  in  Christianity,  which  could  be  readily  substi- 
tuted for  them,  and  envelop  them  immediately  with  distrust  or 
just  oblivion.  Hence  we  do  not  see,  in  the  subsequent  ecclesi- 
astical history  of  Ireland,  any  thing  to  resemble  the  short  sketch 
we  have  given  of  the  many  dangers  arising  within  the  young 
Christian  Church,  which  had  their  origin  in  the  former  religion 
of  other  European  nations. 

In  regarding  philosophy  and  its  perils  in  Ireland,  our  task 
will  be  an  easy  one,  yet  not  unimportant  in  its  bearings  on  sub- 
sequent considerations.    The  minds  of  nations  differ  as  greatly 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


81 


as  their  physical  characteristics  ;  and  to  study  the  Irish  mind  we 
have  only  to  take  into  consideration  the  institutions  which  swayed 
it  from  time  immemorial.  They  were  of  such  a  nature  that  they 
could  but  belong  to  a  traditional  people.  All  patriarchal  tribes 
partake  of  that  general  character ;  none,  perhaps,  so  strikingly 
as  the  Celts. 

People  thus  disposed  have  nothing  rationalistic  in  their 
nature  ;  they  accept  old  facts  ;  and,  if  they  reason  upon  them,  it 
is  to  find  proofs  to  support,  not  motives  to  doubt  them.  They 
never  refine  their  discussions  to  hair-splitting,  synonymous  al- 
most with  rejection,  as  seems  to  be  the  delight  of  what  we  call 
rationalistic  races.  It  was  among  these  that  philosophy  was  born, 
and  among  them  it  flourishes.  They  may,  by  their  acute  reason- 
ing, enlarge  the  human  mind,  open  up  new  horizons,  and,  if 
confined  within  just  limits,  actually  enrich  the  understanding  of 
man.    We  are  far  from  pretending  that  philosophy  has  only  been 

Eroductive  of  harm,  and  that  it  were  a  blessed  thing  had  the 
uman  intellect  always  remained,  as  it  were,  in  a  dormant  state, 
without  ever  striving  to  grasp  at  philosophic  truth  and  raise 
itself  above  the  common  level ;  we  hold  the  great  names  of 
Augustine,  Anselm,  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  so  many  others,  in 
too  great  respect  to  entertain  such  an  opinion. 

Yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  excessive  study  of  philoso- 
phy has  produced  many  evils  among  men,  has  often  been  subser- 
vient to  error,  has,  at  best,  been  for  many  minds  the  source  of  a 
cold  and  desponding  skepticism. 

~No  race  of  men,  perhaps,  has  been  less  inclined  to  follow 
those  intellectual  aberrations  than  the  Celtic,  owing  chiefly  to 
its  eminently  traditional  dispositions. 

Before  Christianity  reached  them,  the  intellectual  labors  of 
the  Celts  were  chiefly  confined  to  history  and  genealogy,  medi- 
cine and  botany,  law,  song,  music,  and  artistic  workings  in  met- 
als and  gems.  This  was  the  usual  curriculum  of  Druidic  studies. 
Astronomy  and  the  physical  sciences,  as  well  as  the  knowledge 
of  "  the  nature  of  the  eternal  God,"  were,  according  to  Caesar, 
extensively  studied  in  the  Gallic  schools.  Some  elements  of 
those  intellectual  pursuits  may  also  have  occupied  the  attention 
of  the  Irish  student  during  the  twelve,  fifteen,  or  twenty  years 
of  his  preparation  for  being  ordained  to  the  highest  degree  of 
ollamh.  JBut  the  oldest  and  most  reliable  documents  which 
have  been  examined  so  far  do  not  allow  us  to  state  positively 
that  such  was  the  case  to  any  great  extent. 

In  Christian  times,  however,  it  seems  certain  that  astronomy 
was  better  studied  in  Ireland  than  anywhere  else,  as  is  proved 
by  the  extraordinary  impulse  given  to  that  science  by  Virgil  of 
Salzburg,  who  was  undoubtedly  an  Irishman,  and  educated  in 
his  native  country. 
6 


82 


PREPARATION  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


It  is  from  the  Church  alone,  therefore,  that  they  received 
their  highest  intellectual  training  in  the  philosophy  and  theology 
of  the  Scriptures  and  of  the  Fathers.  It  is  known  that,  by  the 
introduction  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  tongues  into  their  schools 
in  addition  to  the  vernacular,  the  Bible  in  Latin  and  Greek,  and 
the  writings  of  many  Fathers  in  both  languages,  as  also  the  most 
celebrated  works  of  Roman  and  Greek  classical  writers,  became 
most  interesting  subjects  of  study.  They  reproduced  those 
works  for  their  own  use  in  the  scriptoria  of  their  numerous 
monasteries.  We  still  possess  some  of  those  manuscripts  of  the 
sixth  and  following  centuries,  and  none  more  beautiful  or  correct 
can  be  found  among  those  left  by  the  English,  French,  or  Italian 
monastic  institutions  of  the  periods  mentioned. 

During  the  seventh,  eighth,  and  ninth  centuries,  the  Irish 
schools  became  celebrated  all  over  Europe.  Young  Anglo-Sax- 
ons of  the  best  families  were  sent  to  receive  their  education  in 
Innisfail,  as  the  island  was  then  often  called ;  and,  from  their 
celebrated  institutions  of  learning,  numerous  teachers  and  mis- 
sionaries went  forth  to  England,  Germany  (along  the  Rhine, 
chiefly),  France,  and  even  Switzerland  and  Italy. 

Yet,  in  the  history  of  all  those  intellectual  labors,  we  never 
read  of  startling  theories  in  philosophy  or  theology  advanced  by 
any  of  them,  unless  we  except  the  eccentric  John  Scotus  Erige- 
na,  whom  Charles  the  Bald,  at  whose  court  he  resided,  protect- 
ed even  against  the  just  severity  of  the  Church.  Without  ever 
having  studied  theology,  he  undertook  to  dogmatize,  and  would 
perhaps  have  originated  some  heresy,  had  he  found  a  following 
in  Germany  or  France. 

But  he  is  the  only  Irishman  who  ever  threatened  the  peace 
of  the  Church,  and,  through  her,  of  the  world.  Duns  Scotus,  if 
he  were  Irish,  never  taught  any  error,  and  remained  always  an 
accepted  leader  in  Catholic  schools.  To  the  honor  of  Erin  be  it 
said,  her  children  have  ever  been  afraid  to  deviate  in  the  least 
from  the  path  of  faith.  And  it  would  be  wrong  to  imagine  that 
the  preservation  from  heresy  so  peculiar  to  them,  and  by  which 
they  are  broadly  distinguished  from  all  other  European  nations, 
comes  from  dulness  of  intellect  and  inability  to  follow  out  an 
intricate  argumentation.  They  show  the  acuteness  of  their  un- 
derstanding in  a  thousand  ways ;  in  poetry,  in  romantic  tales, 
in  narrative  compositions,  in  legal  acumen  and  extempore  argu- 
ments, in  the  study  of  medicine,  chiefly  in  that  masterly  elo- 
quence by  which  so  many  of  them  are  distinguished.  Who  shall 
say  that  they  might  not  also  have  reached  a  high  degree  of 
eminence  in  philosophical  discussions  and  ontological  theories  ? 
They  have  always  abstained  from  such  studies  by  reason  of  a 
natural  disinclination,  which  does  them  honor,  and  which  has 
saved  them  in  modern  times,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  subsequent 


PREPARATION"  FOR  CHRISTIANITY. 


83 


chapter,  from  the  innumerable  evils  which  afflict  society  every- 
where else,  and  by  which  it  is  even  threatened  with  destruction. 

Thus,  among  the  numerous  and  versatile  progeny  of  J aphet 
one  small  branch  has  kept  itself  aloof  from  the  universal  move 
ment  of  the  whole  family  ;  and,  in  the  very  act  of  accepting 
Christianity  and  taking  a  place  in  the  commonwealth  of  Western 
nations,  it  has  known  how  to  do  so  in  its  own  manner,  and  has 
thus  secured  a  firm  hold  of  the  saving  doctrines  imparted  to  the 
whole  race  for  a  great  purpose — the  purpose,  unfortunately  often 
defeated — of  reducing  to  practice  and  reality  the  sublime  ideal  of 
the  Christian  religion. 

The  details  given  in  this  chapter  on  the  various  circumstances 
connected  with  the  introduction  of  our  holy  faith  into  Ireland 
were  necessarily  very  limited,  as  our  chief  object  was  to  speak 
of  the  nation's  preparation  for  it.  In  the  following  we  treat 
directly  of  what  could  only  be  touched  upon  in  the  latter  part 
of  this. 


CHAPTER.  IY. 


HOW  THE  IRISH  RECEIVED  CHEISTIAXTTJ . 


For  the  conversion  of  pagans  to  Christianity,  many  exterior 
proofs  of  revelation  were  vouchsafed  by  God  to  man  in  addition 
to  the  interior  impulse  of  his  grace.  Those  exterior  proofs  are 
generally  termed  "the  evidences  of  religion."  They  produce 
their  chief  effect  on  inquiring  minds  which  are  familiar  with  the 
reasoning  processes  of  philosophy,  and  attach  great  importance 
to  truth  acquired  by  logical  deduction.  To  this,  many  pagans 
of  Greece  and  Rome  owed  their  conversion  ;  by  this,  in  our  days, 
many  strangers  are  brought,  on  reflection,  to  the  faith  of  Christ, 
always  presupposing  the  paramount  influence  of  divine  grace  on 
their  minds  and  hearts. 

But  it  is  easy  to  remark  that,  except  in  rare  cases,  those  who 
are  gained  over  to  truth  by  such  a  process  are  with  some  diffi- 
culty brought  under  the  influence  of  the  supernatural,  which 
forms  the  essential  groundwork  of  Christianity.  This  influ- 
ence, it  is  true,  is  only  the  effect  of  the  operation  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  on  the  soul  of  the  convert ;  but  the  Holy  Ghost  acts  in 
conformity  with  the  disposition  of  the  soul ;  and  we  know,  by 
what  has  been  said  on  the  character  of  religion  among  the  Ro- 
mans and  the  Greeks  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  Church,  that  it 
took  long  ages,  the  infusion  of  Northern  blood,  and  the  sim- 
plicity of  new  races  uncontaminated  by  heathen  mythology,  to 
inspire  men  with  that  deep  supernatural  feeling  which  in  course 
of  time  became  the  distinguishing  character  of  the  ages  of  faith. 
Ireland  imbibed  this  feeling  at  once,  and  thus  she  received  Chris- 
tianity more  thoroughly,  at  the  very  beginning,  than  did  any 
other  Western  nation. 

The  fact  is — whatever  may  be  thought  or  said — the  Christian 
religion,  with  all  the  loveliness  it  imparts  to  this  world  when 
rightly  understood,  though  never  destroying  Nature,  but  always 
keeping  it  in  mind,  and  consecrating  it  to  God,  truly  endowed, 
consequently,  with  the  promises  01  earth  as  well  as  those  of 
heaven — the  Christian  religion  is  nevertheless  fundamentallv  su 


KECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


85 


pernatural,  fall  of  awe  and  mystery,  heavenly  and  incomprehen- 
sible, before  being  earthly  and  the  grateful  object  of  sense. 

Without  examining  the  various  formularies  which  heresy 
compelled  an  infallible  Church  to  proclaim  and  impose  upon  her 
children  from  time  to  time,  the  Apostles'  Creed  alone  transfers 
man  at  once  into  regions  supernatural,  into  heaven  itself.  The 
Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  the  Redemption,  the  mission  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  on  earth,  the  communion  of  saints,  the  forgiveness 
of  sins,  and  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  are  all  mysteries  neces- 
sitating a  revelation  on  the  part  of  God  himself  to  make  them 
known  to  and  believed  by  man.  Do  they  not  place  man,  even 
while  on  earth,  in  direct  communication  with  heaven  ? 

The  firm  believer  in  those  mysteries  is  already  a  celestial  citi- 
zen by  faith  and  hope.  He  has  acquired  a  new  life,  new  senses, 
as  it  were,  new  faculties  of  mind  and  will — all  things,  evidently, 
above  Nature. 

And  it  is  clear,  from  many  passages  of  the  New  Testament, 
that  our  Lord  wished  the  lives  of  his  disciples  to  be  wholly  pene- 
trated with  that  supernatural  essence.  They  were  not  to  be  men 
of  the  earth,  earthly,  but  citizens  of  another  country  which  is 
heavenly  and  eternal.  Hence  the  holiness  and  perfection  re- 
quired of  them — a  holiness,  according  to  Christ,  like  that  of  the 
celestial  Father  himself ;  hence  contempt  for  the  things  of  this 
world,  so  strongly  recommended  by  our  Lord  ;  hence  the  assur- 
ance that  men  are  called  to  be  sons  of  God,  the  eternal  Son  hav- 
ing become  incarnate  to  acquire  for  us  this  glorious  privilege ; 
hence,  finally,  that  frequent  recommendation  in  the  Gospel  to 
rely  on  God  for  the  things  of  this  life,  and  to  look  above  all  for 
spiritual  blessings. 

That  reliance  is  set  forth  in  such  terms,  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  that,  taken  literally,  man  should  neglect  entirely  his  tem- 
poral advantages,  forget  entirely  Nature,  and  think  only  of  grace, 
or  rather,  expect  that  the  things  of  Nature  would  be  given  us  by 
our  heavenly  Father  "  who  knows  that  we  need  them." 

Nature,  consequently,  assumes  a  new  aspect  in  this  system. 
It  is  no  longer  a  complexity  of  temporal  goods  within  reach  of 
the  efforts  of  man,  and  which  it  rests  with  man  alone  to  procure 
for  himself.  It  is,  indeed,  a  worldly  treasure,  belonging  to  God, 
as  all  else,  and  which  the  hand  of  God  scatters  profusely  among 
his  creatures.  God  will  not  fail  to  grant  to  every  one  what  he 
needs,  if  he  have  faith.  Thus  God  is  always  visible  in  Nature  ; 
and  redeemed  man,  raised  far  above  the  beasts  of  the  field,  has 
other  eyes  than  those  of  the  body,  when  he  looks  around  him  on 
this  world. 

Had  Christianity  been  literally  understood  by  those  who  first 
received  it,  it  would  have  completely  changed  the  moral,  social, 
and  even  natural  aspect  of  the  universe.    The  change  produced 


86  RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

throughout  bv  the  new  religion  wa3  indeed  remarkable,  but  not 
what  it  would  have  been,  if  the  supernatural  had  taken  complete 
possession  of  human  society.  This  it  did  in  Ireland,  and,  it  may 
be  said,  in  Ireland  alone. 

To  begin  with  the  preaching  of  St.  Patrick,  we  note  his  care 
to  impart  to  his  converts  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  Christian 
mysteries,  but,  above  all,  to  make  those  mysteries  influence  their 
lives  by  acting  more  powerfully  on  the  new  Christian  heart  than 
even  on  the  mind. 

Thus,  in  the  beautiful  legend  of  Ethne  and  Felimia,  the  saint, 
not  content  with  instructing  them  on  the  attributes  of  God,  the 
Trinity,  and  other  supernatural  truths,  goes  further  still ;  he  re- 
quires a  change  in  their  whole  being — that  it  be  spiritualized  : 
by  deeply  exciting  their  feelings,  by  speaking  of  Christ  as  their 
spouse,  by  making  them  wish  to  receive  him  in  the  holy  Eucha- 
rist, even  at  the  expense  of  their  temporal  life,  he  so  raises  them 
above  Nature  that  they  actually  asked  to  die.  "  And  they  re- 
ceived the  Eucharist  of  God,  and  they  slept  in  death." 

Again,  in  the  hymn  of  Tara,  the  heavenly  spirit,  which  con- 
sists in  an  intimate  union  with  God  and  Christ,  is  so  admirably 
expressed,  that  we  cannot  refrain  from  presenting  an  extract 
from  it,  remarking  that  this  beautiful  hymn  has  been  the  great 
prayer  of  all  Irishmen  through  all  ages  down  even  to  our  own 
times,  though,  unfortunately,  it  is  not  now  so  generally  known 
and  used  by  them  as  formerly : 

"  At  Tara,  to-day,  may  the  strength  of  God  pilot  me,  may 
the  power  of  God  preserve  me,  may  the  wisdom  of  God  instruct 
me,  mav  the  eve  of  God  view  me,  may  the  ear  of  God  hear  me, 
may  the  word  ol  God  render  me  eloquent,  may  the  hand  of  God 
protect  me,  may  the  way  of  God  direct  me,  may  the  shield  of 
God  defend  me,  etc. 

"  Christ  be  with  me,  Christ  before  me,  Christ  after  me,  Christ 
in  me,  Christ  under  me,  Christ  over  me,  Christ  at  my  right,  Christ 
at  my  left ;  .  .  .  Christ  be  in  the  heart  of  each  person  whom  I 
speak  to,  Christ  in  the  mouth  of  each  person  who  speaks  to  me, 
Christ  in  each  eye  which  sees  me,  Christ  in  each  ear  which  hears 
me ! " 

Could  any  thing  tend  more  powerfully  to  make  of  those  whom 
he  converted,  true  supernatural  Christians — forgetful  of  this 
world,  thinking  only  01  another  and  a  brighter  one  ? 

The  island,  at  his  coming,  was  a  prey  to  preternatural  super- 
stitions.   The  Druids  possessed,  in  the  opinion  of  the  people,  a 
power  beyond  that  of  man ;  and  history  shows  the  same  phenome 
non  in  all  pagan  countries,  not  excepting  those  of  our  time.  A 
real  supernatural  power  was  required  to  overcome  that  of  the  magi. 

Hence,  according  to  Probus,  the  magicians  to  whom  the  ar- 
rival of  Patrick  had  been  foretold,  prepared  themselves  for  the 


RECEPTION"  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


87 


contest,  and  several  chieftains  supported  them.  Prestiges  were, 
therefore,  tried  in  antagonism  to  miracles ;  but,  as  Moses  pre- 
vailed over  the  power  of  the  Egyptian  priests,  so  did  Patrick 
over  the  Celtic  magicians.  It  is  even  said  that  five  Druids  per- 
ished in  one  of  the  contests. 

The  princes  were  sometimes  also  punished  with  death.  Pe- 
craid,  head  of  a  clan,  came  with  his  L)ruids  and  with  words  of 
incantation  written  under  his  white  garments ;  he  fell  dead. 
Laeghaire  himself,  the  Ard-Pigh  of  all  Ireland,  whose  family  be- 
came Christian,  but  who  refused  to  abandon  his  superstitions, 
perished  with  his  numerous  attendants. 

But  a  more  singular  phenomenon  was,  that  death,  which  was 
often  the  punishment  of  unbelief,  became  as  often  a  boon  to  be 
desired  by  the  new  Christian  converts,  so  completely  were  they 
under  the  influence  of  the  supernatural.  Thus  Puis  found  it 
hard  to  believe.  To  strengthen  his  faith,  Patrick  restored  to 
him  his  youth,  and  then  gave  him  the  choice  between  this  sweet 
blessing  of  life  and  the  happiness  of  heaven ;  Puis  preferred  to 
die,  like  Ethne  and  Eelimia. 

Sechnall,  the  bard,  told  St.  Patrick,  one  day,  that  he  wished 
to  sing  the  praises  of  a  saint  whom  the  earth  still  possessed. 
"  Hasten,  then,"  said  Patrick,  u  for  thou  art  at  the  gates  of  death." 
Sechnall,  not  only  undisturbed,  but  full  of  joy,  sang  a  glorious 
hymn  in  honor  of  Patrick,  and  immediately  after  died. 

Kynrecha  came  to  the  convent-door  of  St.  Senan.  "What 
have  women  in  common  with  monks  ? "  said  the  holy  abbot. 
"We  will  not  receive  thee."  "Before  I  leave  this  place,"  re- 
sponded Kynrecha,  "I  offer  this  prayer  to  God,  that  my  soul 
may  leave  the  body."    And  she  sank  down  and  expired. 

The  various  lives  of  the  apostle  of  Ireland  and  his  successors 
are  full  of  facts  of  this  nature.  Supposing  that  a  high  coloring 
was  given  to  some  of  these  by  the  writers,  one  thing  is  certain  : 
the  people  who  lived  during  that  apostleship  believed  in  them 
firmly,  and  handed  down  their  belief  to  their  children.  More- 
over, nothing  was  better  calculated  to  give  to  a  primitive  people, 
like  the  Irish,  a  strong  supernatural  spirit  and  character,  than  to 
make  them  despise  the  joys  of  this  earth  and  yearn  for  a  better 
country. 

There  are,  indeed,  too  many  facts  of  a  similar  kind  related  in 
the  lives  of  St.  Patrick  and  his  fellow-workers,  to  bear  the  impu- 
tation, not  of  imposition,  but  even  of  delusion.  The  desire  of 
dying,  to  be  united  with  Christ ;  the  indifference,  at  least,  as  to 
the  prolongation  of  existence ;  the  readiness,  if  not  the  joy,  with 
which  the  announcement  of  death  was  received,  are  of  such  fre- 
quent mention  in  those  old  legends,  as  matters  of  ordinary  occur- 
rence, surprising  no  one,  that  they  must  be  conceded  as  facta 
often  taking  place  in  those  early  ages. 


88 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


And,  more  striking  still,  this  feeling  of  accepting  death, 
either  as  a  boon  or  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  with  perfect  res- 
ignation to  the  will  of  God,  seems  to  have  been  throughout, 
since  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  a  characteristic  of  the 
Irish  people.  It  is  often  witnessed  in  our  own  days,  and  mani- 
fested equally  by  the  young,  the  middle-aged,  or  the  old.  The 
young,  closing  their  eyes  to  that  bright  life  whose  sweetness 
they  have  as  yet  scarcely  tasted,  never  murmur  at  being  deprived 
of  it,  though  hope  is  to  them  so  alluring  ;  the  middle-aged,  called 
away  in  the  midst  of  projects  yet  unaccomplished,  see  the  sud- 
den end  of  all  that  before  interested  them,  with  no  other  con- 
cern than  for  the  children  they  leave  behind  them ;  the  old, 
among  other  races  generally  so  tenacious  of  life,  are,  as  a  rule, 
glad  that  their  last  hour  has  come,  and  speak  only  of  their  joy 
that  at  last  they  "go  home"  to  that  country  whither  so  many 
of  their  friends  and  kindred  have  gone  before  them. 

This  in  itself  would  stamp  the  Celtic  character  with  an  in- 
delible mark,  distinguishing  it  from  all  other,  even  most  Chris- 
tian, peoples. 

The  second  sign  we  find  of  the  firm  hold  the  supernatural 
had  taken  of  the  Irish  from  the  very  beginning  is  their  strong 
belief  in  the  power  of  the  priesthood.  This  is  so  striking  amon» 
them  that  they  have  been  called  by  their  enemies  and  those  ot 
the  Church  "  a  priest-ridden  people."  Let  us  consider  if  this  is 
a  reproach. 

If  Christianity  be  true,  what  is  the  priesthood  ?  Even  among 
the  Greeks,  from  whom  so  many  heresies  formerly  sprang  before 
they  were  smitten  into  insignificance  by  schism  and  its  punish- 
ment— Turkish  slavery — when  the  great  doctors  sent  them  by 
Providence  spoke  on  the  subject,  what  were  their  words,  and 
what  impression  did  they  make  on  their  supercilious  hearers? 
St.  John  Chrysostom  will  answer.  His  long  treatise,  written  to 
his  friend  Basil,  is  but  a  glowing  description  of  the  great  privi- 
leges given  to  the  Christian  priest  by  the  High-Priest  himself- 
Christ  our  Lord. 

When  the  great  preacher  of  Antioch,  though  not  yet  a  priest, 
describes  the  awful  moment  of  sacrifice,  the  altar  surrounded  by 
angels  descended  from  heaven,  the  man  consecrated  to  an  office 
higher  than  any  on  earth,  and  as  high  as  that  of  the  incarnate 
Son  of  God — God  himself  coming  down  from  above  and  bring- 
ing down  heaven  with  him — who  can  believe  in  Christianity  and 
fail  to  be  struck  with  awe  ? 

Who  can  read  the  words  of  Christ,  declaring  that  any  one 
invested  with  that  dignity  is  sent  by  him  as  he  was  himself  sent 
by  his  Father,  and  not  feel  the  innate  respect  due  to  such  divine 
honors  1  "Who  can  read  the  details  of  those  privileges  with  re- 
spect to  the  remission  of  sin,  the  conferring  of  grace  by  the  sacra- 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


89 


ments,  the  infallible  teaching  of  truth,  the  power  even  granted  to 
them  sometimes  over  rTature  and  disease,  without  feeling  him- 
self transported  into  a  world  far  above  this,  and  without  placing 
his  confidence  in  what  God  himself  has  declared  so  powerful  and 
preeminent  in  the  regions  beyond  ? 

Such,  in  a  few  words,  is  the  Christian  priesthood,  if  Chris- 
tianity possesses  any  reality  and  is  not  an  imposture. 

Among  all  nations,  therefore,  where  sound  faith,  exists,  the 
greatest  respect  is  shown  to  the  ministers  of  God  ;  but  the  Irish 
have  at  all  times  been  most  persistent  in  their  veneration  and 
trust.  And  if  we  would  ascertain  the  cause  of  their  standing  in 
this  regard,  we  shall  find  that  other  nations,  while  firmly  believ- 
ing the  words  of  Christ,  keep  their  eyes  open  to  human  frailty, 
and  look  more  keenly  and  with  more  suspicion  on  the  conduct 
of  men  invested  with  so  high  a  dignity,  but  subject  at  the  same 
time  to  earthly  passions  and  sins ;  while  the  Irish,  on  the  con- 
trary, abandon  themselves  with  all  the  impulsiveness  of  their 
nature  to  the  feeling  uppermost  in  their  hearts,  which  is  ever 
one  of  trust  and  ready  reliance. 

But  this  statement,  whatever  may  be  its  intrinsic  value, 
itself  needs  a  further  explanation,  which  is  only  to  be  found  in 
the  greater  attraction  the  supernatural  always  possessed  for  the 
Irish  nature,  when  developed  by  grace.  They  accept  fully  and 
unsuspiciously  what  is  heavenly,  because  they,  more  than  others, 
feel  that  they  are  made  for  heaven,  and  the  earth,  consequently, 
has  for  them  fewer  attractions.  They  cling  to  a  world  far  above 
this,  and  whatever  belongs  to  it  is  dear  to  them. 

Hence,  from  the  first  preaching  of  Christianity  among  them, 
all  earthly  dignities  have  paled  before  the  heavenly  honors  of 
the  priesthood.  They  have  been  taught  by  St.  Patrick  that 
even  the  supreme  duties  of  a  real  Christian  king  fall  far  below 
those  of  a  Christian  bishop. 

The  king,  according  to  the  apostle  of  Ireland — and  his  words 
have  become  a  canon  of  the  Irish  Church — "  has  to  judge  no 
man  unjustly ;  to  be  the  protector  of  the  stranger,  of  the  widow, 
and  the  orphan  ;  to  repress  theft,  punish  adultery,  not  to  keep 
buffoons  or  unchaste  persons  ;  not  to  exalt  iniquity,  but  to  sweep 
away  the  impious  from  the  land,  exterminate  parricides  and  per 
jurers  ;  to  defend  the  poor,  to  appoint  just  men  over  the  aflairs 
of  the  kingdom,  to  consult  wise  and  temperate  elders,  to  defend 
his  native  land  against  its  enemies  rightfully  and  stoutly  ;  in  all 
things  to  put  his  trust  in  God." 

All  this  evidently  refers  only  to  the  exterior  polity  and 
administration.  But  "  the  bishop  must  be  the  hand  which  sup- 
ports, the  pilot  who  directs,  the  anchor  that  stays,  the  hammer 
that  strikes,  the  sun  that  enlightens,  the  dew  which  moistens, 
the  tablet  to  be  written  on,  the  book  to  be  read,  the  mirror  to  be 


90 


KECEPTION  OF  CHKISTT AKET Y . 


seen  in,  the  terror  that  terrifies,  the  image  of  all  that  is  good ; 
and  let  him  be  all  for  all." 

Under  this  metaphorical  style  we  here  dis:ern  all  the  in- 
terior qualities  of  a  spiritual  Christian  guide,  teaching  no  less  by 
authority  than  example. 

And,  in  the  opinion  of  the  converts  of  Patrick,  were  not  the 
bishops,  abbots,  and  priests,  supported  by  an  invisible  power, 
stronger  than  all  visible  armies  and  guards  of  kings  and  princes  % 

"When  the  King  of  Cashel  dared  to  contend  against  the  holy 
abbot  Mochoemoc,  the  first  night  after  the  dispute  an  old  man 
took  the  king  by  the  hand  and  led  him  to  the  northern  city- 
walls  ;  there  he  opened  the  king's  eyes,  and  he  beheld  all  the 
Irish  saints  of  his  own  sex  in  white  garments,  with  Patrick  at 
their  head ;  they  were  there  to  protect  Mochoemoc,  and  they 
filled  the  plain  of  Femyn. 

"  The  second  night  the  old  man  came  again  and  took  the  king 
to  the  southern  wall,  and  there  he  saw  the  white-robed  glorious 
army  of  Ireland's  virgins,  led  by  Bridget :  thev  too  had  come  to 
defend  Mochoemoc,  and  they  filled  the  plain  01  Monael."  1 

In  the  annals  of  no  other  Christian  nation  do  we  see  so 
many  examples  of  the  power  of  the  ministers  of  God  to  punish 
the  wicked  and  help  and  succor  the  good,  as  we  do  in  the  hagi- 
ography  of  Ireland.  Bad  kings  and  chieftains  reproved,  cursed, 
punished ;  the  poor  assisted,  the  oppressed  delivered  from  their 
enemies,  the  sick  restored  to  health,  the  dead  even  raised  to  life, 
are  occurrences  which  the  reader  meets  in  almost  every  page  of 
the  lives  of  Irish  saints.  The  Bollandists,  accustomed  as  they 
were  to  meet  with  miracles  of  that  kind,  in  the  lives  they  pub- 
lished, found  in  Irish  hagiography  such  a  superabundance  of  them, 
that  they  refused  to  admit  into  their  admirable  compilation  a 
great  number  already  published  or  in  manuscript.  Nevertheless, 
the  critics  of  our  days,  finding  nothing  impossible  to  or  unworthv 
of  God  in  the  large  collection  of  Colgan  and  other  Irish  anti- 
quarians, express  their  surprise  at  their  exclusion  from  that  of 
Bollandus. 

No  one  at  least  will  refuse  to  concede  that,  true  or  not,  the 
facts  related  in  those  lives  are  always  provocative  of  piety  and 
redolent  of  faith.  They  certainly  prove  that  at  all  periods  of 
their  existence  the  Irish  have  manifested  a  holy  avidity  for  every 
thing  supernatural  and  miraculous.  Do  they  not  know  that  our 
Lord  has  promised  gifts  of  this  description  to  his  apostles  and 
their  successors  ?  And  what  the  acts  of  the  Apostles  and  many 
acts  of  martyrs  positively  state  as  having  happened  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  Church,  is  not  a  whit  less  extraordinary  or 
physically  impossible  than  any  thing  related  in  the  Irish  legends. 

1  Many  quotations  in  this  chapter  are  from  the  "  Leg'nd.  Hist.  "  by  J.  G.  Shea. 


RECEPTION  OF  OHPJSTIAOTTY. 


91 


Every  Christian  soul  naturally  abhors  the  unbelief  of  a 
Strauss  or  of  a  Renan  as  to  the  former ;  is  it  not  unnatural, 
then,  for  the  same  Christian  soul  to  reject  the  latter  because  they 
fall  under  the  easy  sneer  of  "  an  Irish  legend,"  and  are  not  con- 
tained in  Holy  W  rit  ? 

At  all  events,  the  faith  of  the  Irish  has  never  wavered  in 
such  matters,  and  to-day  they  hold  the  same  confidence  in  the 
priests'  power  that  meets  us  everywhere  in  the  pages  of  Colgan 
and  Ward.  The  reason  is,  that  they  admit  Christianity  without 
reserve;  and  in  its  entirety  it  is  supernatural.  The  criticisms 
of  human  reason  on  holy  things  hold  in  their  eyes  something  of 
the  sacrilegious  and  blasphemous ;  such  criticisms  are  for  them 
open  disrespect  for  divine  things ;  and,  inasmuch  as  divine  things 
are,  in  fact,  more  real  than  any  phenomena  under  natural  laws 
can  be,  skepticism  in  the  former  case  is  always  more  unreason- 
able than  in  the  latter,  supposing  always  that  the  narrative  of 
the  Divine  favors  reposes  on  sufficient  authority. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  since  the  preaching  of  Christianity 
in  Ireland,  the  world  showed  itself  to  the  inhabitants  of  that 
country  in  a  different  light  to  that  in  which  other  men  beheld 
it.  For  them,  Nature  is  never  separated  from  its  Maker ;  the 
hand  of  God  is  ever  visible  in  all  mundane  affairs,  and  the 
frightful  parting  between  the  spiritual  and  material  worlds,  first 
originated  by  the  Baconian  philosophy,  which  culminates  in  our 
days  in  the  almost  open  negation  of  the  spiritual,  and  thus 
materializes  all  things,  is  with  justice  viewed  by  the  children  of 
St.  Patrick  with  a  holy  horror  as  leading  to  atheism,  if  it  be  not 
atheism  itself. 

Without  going  to  such  extremes  as  the  avowed  infidels  of 
modern  times,  all  other  Christian  nations  have  seemed  afraid  to 
draw  the  logical  conclusions  whose  premises  were  laid  down  by 
revelation.  They  have  tried  to  follow  a  via  media  between  truth 
and  error  ;  they  have  admitted  to  a  certain  extent  the  separation 
of  God  and  Nature,  supposing  the  act  of  creation  to  have  passed 
long  ages  ago,  and  not  continuing  through  all  time;  and  thus 
they  are  bound  by  their  system  to  hold  that  miracles  are  very 
extraordinary  things,  not  to  be  believed  prima  facie,  requiring 
infinite  precautions  before  admitting  the  supposition  of  their 
having  taken  place ;  all  which  indicates  a  real  repugnance  to 
their  admission,  and  an  innate  fear  of  supposing  God  all-power- 
ful, just,  and  good.  It  is  the  first  step  to  Manicheism  and  the 
kindred  errors ;  and  most  Christian  nations  having,  unfortu- 
nately, imbibed  the  principles  of  those  errors  in  the  philosophy 
of  modern  times,  have  almost  lost  all  faith  in  the  supernatural, 
and  reduced  revelation  to  a  meagre  and  cold  system,  unrealized 
and  not  to  be  realized  in  human  life. 

Not  so  the  Irish    ileligion  has  entered  deep  into  their  life. 


92 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


It  is  a  thing  of  every  moment  and  of  every  place.  Nature,  God's 
handiwork,  instead  of  repelling  them  from  God  himself,  draws 
them  gently  but  forcibly  toward  Him,  so  that  they  feel  them- 
selves to  be  truly  recipients  of  the  blessings  of  God  by  being 
sharers  in  the  blessings  of  Nature. 

And  must  God's  ministers,  who  have  received  such  extraor- 
dinary powers  over  the  supernatural  world,  be  entirely  de- 
prived of  power  over  the  inferior  part  of  creation  ?  Who  can 
say  so,  and  have  true  faith  in  the  words  of  our  Lord  ?  Who  can 
say  so,  and  truly  call  himself  the  follower  and  companion  of  the 
saints  who  have  all  believed  so  firmly  in  the  constant  action  of 
God  in  this,  the  lesser  part  of  his  creation  ! 

And  this  faith  of  the  Irish  in  the  power  of  the  priesthood  is 
not  a  thing  of  yesterday.  It  dates  from  their  adoption  of  Chris- 
tianity, to  continue,  we  hope,  forever.  It  ought,  therefore,  to 
be  carefully  distinguished  from  that  love  for  every  priest  of  God 
which  beats  so  ardently  in  the  hearts  of  them  all,  and  which  was 
so  strengthened  by  a  long  community  of  persecution  and  suf- 
fering. 

In  Ireland,  as  in  every  other  Christian  country,  the  priest- 
hood has  always  sided  with  the  people  against  their  oppressors. 
During  the  early  ages  of  Christianity  in  the  island,  the  bishops, 
priests,  and  monks,  were  often  called  upon  to  exercise  their 
authority  and  power  against  princes  and  chiefs  of  clans,  accus- 
tomed to  plunder,  destroy,  and  kill,  on  the  slightest  pretext,  and 
unused  to  control  their  fierce  passions,  inflamed  by  the  rancor 
of  feuds  and  the  pride  of  strength  and  bravery.  Some  of  those 
chieftains  even  opposed  the  progress  of  religion  ;  and  it  is  said 
that  Eochad,  King  of  Ulster,  cast  his  two  daughters,  whom  Pat- 
rick had  baptized  and  consecrated  to  God,  into  the  sea. 

For  several  centuries  the  heads  of  clans  were  generally  so 
unruly  and  so  hard  to  bring  under  the  yoke  of  Christ,  that  the 
saints,  in  taking  the  side  of  the  poor,  had  to  stand  as  a  wall  of 
brass  to  stem  the  fury  of  the  great  and  powerful. 

Bridget  even,  the  modest  and  tender  virgin,  often  spoke 
harshly  of  princes  and  rulers.  "While  she  dwelt  in  the  land 
of  Bregia,  King  ConnaPs  daughter-in-law  came  to  ask  her  prayers, 
for  she  was  barren.  Bridget  refused  to  go  to  receive  her;  but, 
leaving  her  without,  she  sent  one  of  her  maidens.  When  the 
nun  returned :  4  Mother,'  she  asked,  6  why  would  you  not  go  and 
see  the  queen  ?  you  pray  for  the  wives  of  peasants.'  6  Because,' 
said  the  servant  of  God,  '  the  poor  and  the  peasants  are  almost 
all  good  and  pious,  while  the  sons  of  kings  are  serpents,  children 
of  blood  and  fornication,  except  a  small  number  of  elect.  But, 
after  all,  as  she  had  recourse  to  us,  go  back  and  tell  her  that  she 
shall  have  a  son  ;  he  will  be  wicked,  and  his  race  shall  be  ac- 
cursed, yet  he  shall  reign  many  years.'  " 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


93 


We  might  multiply  examples  such  as  this,  wherein  the  saints 
and  the  ministers  of  God  always  side  with  the  poor  and  the 
helpless  ;  and  their  great  number  in  the  lives  of  the  old  saints  at 
once  gives  a  reason  for  the  deep  love  which  the  lower  class  of 
the  Irish  people  felt  for  the  holy  men  who  were  at  once  the  ser- 
vants of  God  and  their  helpers  in  every  distress. 

The  same  thing  is  to  be  found  in  the  whole  subsequent  his- 
tory of  the  island,  chiefly  in  the  latter  ages  of  persecution.  But, 
as  we  said  before,  this  affection  and  love  must  be  distinguished 
from  the  feeling  of  reverence  and  awe  resulting  from  the  super- 
natural character  of  their  office.  The  first  feeling  is  merely  a 
natural  one,  produced  by  deeds  of  benevolence  and  holy  charity 
fondly  remembered  by  the  individuals  benefited.  The  second 
was  the  effect  of  religious  faith  in  the  sacredness  of  the  priestly 
character,  and  remained  in  full  force  even  when  the  poor  them- 
selves fell  under  reproof  or  threat  in  consequence  of  some  mis- 
deed or  vicious  habit. 

Hence  the  universal  respect  which  the  whole  race  entertains 
for  their  spiritual  rulers,  and  their  unutterable  confidence  in 
their  high  prerogatives.  In  prosperity  as  in  adversity,  in  free- 
dom or  in  subjection,  they  always  preserve  an  instinctive  faith 
in  the  unseen  power  which  Christ  conferred  on  those  whom  He 
chose  to  be  his  ministers.  This  feeling,  which  is  undoubtedly 
found  among  good  Christians  in  all  places,  is  as  certainly  only 
found  among  particular  individuals  ;  but  among  the  Irish  Celts 
it  is  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception. 

"Well  have  they  merited,  then,  in  this  sense,  from  the  days  of 
St.  Patrick  down,  the  title  of  a  "  priest-ridden  "  people,  which 
has  been  fixed  on  them  as  a  term  of  reproach  by  those  for  whom 
all  belief  in  the  supernatural  is  belief  in  imposture. 

Another  and  a  stronger  fact  still,  exemplifying  the  extent  to 
which  the  Irish  have  at  all  times  carried  their  devotion  to  the 
supernatural  character  of  the  Christian  religion,  is  the  extraor- 
dinary ardor  with  which,  from  the  very  beginning,  they  rushed 
into  the  high  path  of  perfection,  called  the  way  of  "  evangelical 
counsels."  Nowhere  else  were  such  scenes  ever  witnessed  in 
Christian  history. 

For  the  great  mass  of  people  the  common  way  of  life  is  the 
practice  of  the  commandments  of  God ;  it  is  only  the  few  who 
feel  themselves  called  on  to  enter  upon  another  path,  and  who 
experience  interiorly  the  need  of  being  "perfect." 

In  Ireland  the  case  was  altogether  different  from  the  outset. 
St.  Patrick,  notwithstanding  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  lean- 
ings of  the  race,  expresses  in  his  "  Confessio  "  the  wonder  and 
delight  he  experienced  when  he  saw  in  what  manner  and  in  what 
numbers  they  begged  to  be  consecrated  to  God  the  very  first 
day  after  their  baptism.    Yet  were  they  conscious  that  this  very 


94 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


eagerness  would  excite  the  greater  opposition  on  the  part  of 
their  pagan  relatives  and  friends.  Thus  we  read  of  the  fate  of 
Eochad's  daughters,  and  the  story  of  Ethne  and  Felimia. 

The  whole  nation,  in  fact,  appeared  suddenly  transported 
with  a  holy  impetuosity,  and  lifted  at  once  to  the  height  of 
Christian  life.  Monasteries  and  nunneries  could  not  be  con- 
structed fast  enough,  although  they  contented  themselves  with 
the  lightest  fabrics — wattles  being  the  ordinary  materials  for 
walls,  and  slender  laths  for  roofs. 

Nor  was  this  an  ephemeral  ardor,  like  a  fire  of  stubble  or 
straw,  flashing  into  a  momentary  blaze,  to  relapse  into  deeper 
gloom.  It  lasted  for  several  centuries ;  it  was  still  in  full  flame 
at  the  time  of  Columba,  more  than  two  hundred  years  after 
Patrick;  it  grew  into  a  vast  conflagration  in  the  seventh  and 
eighth  centuries,  when  multitudes  rushed  forth  from  that  burn- 
ing island  of  the  blest  to  spread  the  sacred  fire  through  Europe. 

How  the  nation  continued  to  multiply,  when  so  many  de- 
voted themselves  to  a  holy  celibacy,  is  only  to  be  explained  by 
the  large  number  of  children  with  which  God  blessed  those  who 
pursued  an  ordinary  life,  and  who,  from  what  is  related  in  the 
chronicles  of  the  time,  must  have  been  in  a  minority. 

Of  the  first  monasteries  and  convents  erected  not  a  single 
vestige  now  remains,  because  of  the  perishable  materials  of  which 
they  were  constructed ;  yet  each  of  them  contained  hundreds, 
nay  thousands,  of  monks  or  nuns. 

But,  even  in  our  days,  we  are  furnished  with  an  ocular  dem- 
onstration of  what  men  could  scarcely  bring  themselves  to 
believe,  or  at  least  would  term  an  exaggeration,  did  not  stand- 
ing proof  remain.  God  inspired  his  children  with  the  thought 
of  erecting  more  substantial  structures,  of  building  walls  of  stone 
and  roofing  them  in  with  tiles  and  metal ;  and  the  island  was 
literally  covered,  not  with  Gothic  castles  or  luxurious  palaces 
and  sumptuous  edifices,  but  with  large  and  commodious  build- 
ings and  churches,  wherein  the  religious  life  of  the  inmates 
might  be  carried  on  with  greater  comfort  and  seclusion  from  the 
world. 

At  the  time  of  the  Reformation  all  those  asylums  of  perfec- 
tion and  asceticism  were  of  course  profaned,  converted  to  vile 
or  slavish  uses,  many  altogether  destroyed  to  the  very  founda- 
tions ;  a  greater  number  were  allowed  to  decay  gradually  and 
become  heaps  of  ruins. 

And  what  happened  when  the  English  Government,  unable 
any  longer  to  resist  public  opinion,  was  compelled  to  consent 
that  a  survey  be  made  of  the  poor  and  comparatively  few  re- 
mains still  in  existence,  in  order  to  manifest  a  show  of  interest 
for  the  past  history  of  the  island  ;  when  commissioners  were  ap- 
pointed to  publish  lists  and  diagrams  of  the  former  dwellings  of 


RECEPTION  OF  CEPwISTIANITY. 


95 


the  "  saints,"  which  the  "  zeal  "  of  the  "reformers"  had  battered 
down  without  mercy?  To  the  astonishment  of  all,  it  was  proved 
by  the  ruins  still  in  existence  that  the  greater  portion  of  the 
island  had  been  once  occupied  by  monasteries  and  convents  of 
every  description.  And  Prof.  O'Curry  has  stated  his  conviction, 
based  on  local  traditions  and  geographical  and  topographical 
names,  that  a  great  number  of  these  can  be  traced  back  to  Pat- 
rick and  his  first  companions. 

It  is  clear  enough,  then,  that,  from  the  beginning,  the  Irish 
were  not  only  "  priest-ridden,"  but  also  very  attached  to  "  monk- 
ish superstitions." 

Yet  we  could  not  form  a  complete  idea  of  that  attachment 
were  we  to  limit  ourselves  to  an  enumeration  of  the  buildings 
actually  erected,  supposing  such  an  enumeration  possible  at  this 
time.  For  we  know,  by  many  facts  related  in  Irish  hagiology, 
that  a  great  number  of  those  who  devoted  themselves  to  a  life  of 
penance  and  austerity,  did  not  dwell  even  in  the  humble  struct- 
ures of  the  first  monks,  but,  deeming  themselves  unworthy  of 
the  society  of  their  brethren,  or  condemned  by  a  severe  but  just 
"  friend  of  their  soul,"  as  the  confessor  was  then  called,  hid 
themselves  in  mountain-caves,  in  the  recesses  of  woods  or  forests, 
or  banished  themselves  to  crags  ever  beaten  by  the  waves  of 
the  sea. 

Yes,  there  was  a  time  when  those  dreadful  solitudes  of  the 
Hebrides,  which  frighten  the  modern  tourist  in  his  summer  ex- 
plorations, teemed  with  Christian  life,  and  every  rock,  cave,  and 
sand-bar  had  its  inhabitant,  and  that  inhabitant  an  Irish  monk. 

They  sometimes  spent  seven  years  on  a  desert  islet  doing 
penance  for  a  single  sin.  They  often  passed  a  lifetime  on  a  rock 
in  the  midst  of  the  ocean,  alone  with  God,  and  enjoying  no  com- 
munion but  that  of  their  conscience. 

Who  knows  how  many  thousands  of  men  have  led  such  a  life, 
shocking,  indeed,  to  the  feelings  of  worldlings,  but  in  reality  de- 
voted to  the  contemplation  of  what  is  above  Nature — a  life,  con- 
sequently, exalted  and  holy  ? 

Passing  from  the  solitudes  to  the  numerous  hives  where  the 
bees  of  primitive  Christianity  in  Ireland  were  busy  at  work  con- 
structing their  combs  and  secreting  their  honey,  what  do  we  see  ? 
People  generally  imagine  that  all  monastic  establishments  have 
been  alike ;  that  those  of  mediaeval  times  were  simply  the  repro- 
duction of  earlier  ones.  An  abbot,  the  three  vows,  austerity, 
salmody,  study — such  are  the  general  features  common  to  all ; 
ut  those  of  Ireland  had  peculiarities  which  are  worthy  of  ex- 
amination. We  shall  find  in  them  a  stronger  expression  of  the 
supernatural,  perhaps  ;  certainly  a  more  heavenly  cast,  a  greater 
forgetfulness  of  the  world,  its  manners  and  habits,  its  passions 
and  aims. 


96 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


Patrick  had  learned  all  he  knew  of  this  holy  life  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  Lerins,  wherein  the  West  reflected  more  truly  than 
it  ever  did  subsequently  the  Oriental  light  of  the  great  founders 
of  monasticism  in  Palestine  and  Egypt. 

The  first  thing  to  be  remarked  is  the  want,  to  a  great  extent, 
of  a  strict  system.  The  Danes,  when  Christianized,  and  the 
Anglo-Normans,  introduced  this  afterwards ;  but  the  genius  of 
the  Irish  race  is  altogether  opposed  to  it,  and  the  Scandinavian 
races  in  following  ages  could  hardly  ever  bring  them  under  the 
cold  uniformity  of  an  iron  rule. 

Did  St.  Patrick  establish  a  rule  in  the  monasteries  which  he 
founded  ?  Did  St.  Columba  two  centuries  later  ?  Did  any  of  the 
great  masters  of  spiritual  life  who  are  known  to  have  exercised 
an  influence  on  the  world  of  Irisli  convents  ?  Not  only  has 
nothing  of  the  kind  been  transmitted  to  us,  but  no  mention  of  it 
is  made  in  the  lives  of  holy  abbots  which  we  possess.1  St.  Co- 
lumbanus's  rule  is  the  only  one  which  has  come  down  to  us  ;  but 
the  monasteries  founded  by  him  were  all  situated  in  Burgundy, 
Switzerland,  Germany,  and  Italy — that  is  to  say,  out  of  Ireland, 
out  of  the  island  of  saints.  He  was  compelled  to  furnish  his 
monasteries  with  a  written  rule,  because  they  were  surrounded 
by  barbarous  peoples,  some  of  whom  his  establishments  often 
received  as  monks,  and  to  whom  the  holiness  of  Ireland  was 
unfamiliar  or  utterly  unknown.  But  why  should  the  people  of 
God,  living  in  his  devoted  island,  redeemed  as  soon  as  born  by 
the  waters  of  baptism,  be  shackled  by  enactments  which  might 
serve  as  an  obstacle  to  the  action  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  their  free 
60uls  I 

According  to  the  common  opinion,  each  founder  of  a  monas- 
tery had  his  own  rule,  which  he  himself  was  the  first  to  follow 
in  all  its  rigor  ;  if  disciples  came,  they  were  to  observe  it,  or  go 
elsewhere ;  if,  after  having  embraced  it,  they  found  themselves 
unable  to  keep  it  to  the  letter,  the  abbot  was  indulgent,  and  did 
not  impose  on  them  a  burden  which  they  could  no  longer  bear, 
after  having  first  proved  their  willingness  to  practise  it. 

Thus,  it  is  reported  that  St.  Mochta  was  the  only  one  who 
practised  his  own  rule  exactly,  his  monks  imitating  him  as  well 
as  they  could.  St.  Fintan,  who  was  inclined  to  be  severe,  re- 
ceived this  warning  in  a  vision  :  "  Fight  unto  the  end  thyself; 
but  beware  of  being  a  cause  of  scandal  to  others,  by  requiring  all 
to  fight  as  thou  doest,  for  one  clay  is  weaker  than  another." 

Thus,  every  founder,  every  abbot  even,  left  to  the  guidance 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  practised  austerities  which  in  our  days  of  self- 
indulgence  seem  absolutely  incredible,  and  showed  themselves 

1  The  "  Irish  Penitentials,"  quoted  at  length  in  Rev.  Dr.  Moran's  "  Early  Irish 
Church,"  are  not  monastic  rules,  although  many  canons  have  reference  to  monks. 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


97 


severe  to  those  under  their  authority.  But  this  severity  was 
tempered  by  such  zeal  for  the  good  of  souls,  and  consequently 
by  such  an  unmistakable  charity,  that  the  penitent  monk  carried 
his  burden  not  only  with  resignation,  but  with  joy.  This,  in 
after-ages,  became  a  characteristic  feature  of  Irish  monasticism. 

The  life  of  Columba  is  full  of  examples  of  this  holy  severity. 
In  St.  Patrick's  life  we  read  that  Colman  died  of  thirst  rather 
than  quench  it  before  the  time  appointed  by  his  master. 

How  many  facts  of  a  similar  nature  might  be  mentioned ! 
Enough  to  say  that,  after  so  many  ages,  in  which,  thanks  to  bar- 
barous persecutions,  all  ecclesiastical  and  monastic  traditions 
were  lost  to  Ireland,  through  the  sheer  impossibility  of  following 
them  up,  the  Irish  still  show  a  marked  predilection  for  the  holy 
austerity  of  penance,  though  the  rest  of  the  Christian  world 
seems  to  have  almost  totally  forgotten  it. 

But  if  the  Irish  convents  lacked  system,  there  was  at  the 
same  time  in  them  an  exuberance  of  feeling,  an  enthusiastic  im- 
pulse, which  is  to  be  found  nowhere  else  to  the  same  extent,  and 
which  we  call  their  second  peculiar  feature  after  they  received 
Ghristianity.  This  is  beautifully  expressed  in  a  hymn  of  the 
office  of  St.  Finian :  "  Behold  the  day  of  gladness ;  the  clerks 
applaud  and  are  in  joy  ;  the  sun  of  justice,  which  had  been  hid- 
den in  the  clouds,  shines  forth  again." 

As  soon  as  this  primitive  enthusiasm  seemed  to  slacken  in 
the  least,  reformers  appeared  to  enkindle  it  again.  Such  was 
Bridget,  such  was  Gildas,  such  were  the  disciples  of  St.  David  of 
Menevia  in  Wales,  such  was  any  one  whom  the  Spirit  of  God  in- 
spired with  love  for  Ireland.  Thus  the  scenes  enacted  in  the 
time  of  Patrick  were  again  and  again  repeated. 

And  when  a  monastery  was  built,  it  was  not  properly  a  mon- 
astery, but  a  city  rather ;  for  the  whole  country  round  joined  in 
the  goodly  work..  As  some  one  has  said,  "it  looked  as  if  Ire- 
land was  going  to  cease  to  be  a  nation,  and  become  a  church." 

With  regard  to  the  question  of  ground  and  the  appropriation 
of  landed  property,  what  matters  it  who  is  the  owner  ?  If  it  be 
clan  territory,  there  is  the  clan  with  nothing  but  welcome,  ap- 
plause, and  assistance.  If  it  be  private,  the  owner  is  not  con- 
sulted even  ;  how  could  he  think  of  opposing  the  work  of  God? 
Thus,  we  never  read  in  Irish  history — in  the  earlier  stages  at 
least — of  those  long  charters  granted  in  other  lands  by  kings, 
dukes,  and  counts,  and  preserved  with  such  care  in  the  archives 
of  the  monastery.  It  seems  that  the  Danes,  after  they  became 
Christians,  were  the  first  to  introduce  the  custom ;  after  them, 
the  Anglo-Normans,  in  the  true  spirit  of  their  race,  made  a 
nourishing  business  of  it.  The  Irish  themselves  never  thought 
of  such  at  first.  There  was  no  fear  of  any  one  ever  claiming  the 
ground  on  which  God's  house  stood.  The  buildings  were  there  ■ 
7 


98 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


the  ground  needed  to  support  them  :  what  Irishman  could  think 
of  driving  away  the  holy  inmates  and  pulling  the  walls  about 
their  ears  ? 

The  whole  surrounding  population  is  busy  erecting  them. 
Long  rows  of  wattles  and  tessel-work  are  set  in  right  order ;  over 
them  a  rough  roof  of  boards  ;  within  small  cells  begin  to  appear, 
as  the  slight  partitions  are  erected  between  them.  Symmetry 
or  no  symmetery,  the  position  of  the  ground  decides  the  ques- 
tion :  for  there  is  no  need  of  the  skill  of  a  surveyor  to  establish 
the  grade.    Does  not  the  rain  run  its  own  way,  once  it  begins  ? 

How  far  and  how  wide  will  those  long  rows  reach  ?  They 
seem  the  streets  of  a  city ;  and  in  truth  they  are.  The  place  is 
to  receive  two,  three  thousand  monks,  over  and  above  the  stu- 
dents committed  to  their  care.  And,  in  addition  to  the  cells  to 
dwell  in,  there  are  the  halls  wherein  to  teach ;  the  museums  and 
repositories  of  manuscripts,  of  sacred  objects  ;  the  rooms  to  write 
in,  translate,  compose ;  the  sheds  to  hold  provisions,  to  prepare 
and  cook  them,  ready  for  the  meal. 

For  the  most  important  edifice — the  temple  of  God — alone 
stones  are  cut,  shaped,  and  fitted  each  to  each  with  care  and  pre- 
cision. A  holy  simplicity  surrounds  the  art ;  yet  are  there  not 
wanting  carven  crosses  and  other  divine  emblems  sculptured  out. 
"Within,  the  heavenly  mysteries  of  religion  will  be  performed. 
Should  vou  ask,  "  Why  so  small  ? n  the  answer  is  readv.  That 
large  space  empty  around  holds  room  enough  for  the  worshippers, 
whose  numbers  could  be  accommodated  in  no  edifice.  The 
minds  of  Irish  architects  had  not  yet  expanded  to  the  conception 
of  a  St.  Peter's.  Inside  is  room  enough  for  the  ministers  of  re- 
ligion ;  without,  at  the  tinkling  of  the  bell,  in  the  round-tower 
adjoining,  the  faithful  will  join  in  the  services. 

Nor  was  it  only  in  the  erection  of  those  edifices  that  a  cheer- 
ful impulse,  which  overlooked  or  overcame  all  difficulties,  was 
displayed.  The  monastic  life  was  not  all  the  time  a  life  of  pen- 
ance and  gloomy  austerity,  but  of  active  work  also  and  over- 
flowing feeling,  of  true  poetry  and  enthusiastic  exultation.  "VTe 
read  in  the  fragments  we  still  possess  how,  on  the  arid  rock  of 
Iona,  Columba  remembered  his  former  residence  at  Derry,  with 
its  woods  of  oaks  and  the  pure  waters  of  its  loughs.  In  all  the 
lives  of  Irish  saints  we  read  of  the  deep  attachment  they  always 
preserved  for  their  country,  relatives,  and  friends ;  what  they  did 
and  were  ready  to  do  for  them.  And  though  all  this  was  at  bot- 
tom but  a  natural  feeling,  the  extent  to  which  it  was  carried  will 
make  us  better  acquainted  with  the  Irish  character,  and  explain 
more  clearly  that  extraordinary  expansion  of  soul  which,  in  the 
domains  of  the  supernatural,  surpassed  every  thing  witnessed 
elsewhere. 

"  In  a  monastery  two  brothers  had  lived  from  childhood. 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


99 


The  elder  died,  and  while  he  was  dying  the  other  was  laboring 
in  the  forest.  When  he  came  back,  he  saw  the  brethren  open- 
ing a  grave  in  the  cemetery,  and  thus  he  learned  that  his  brother 
was  dead.  He  hastened  to  the  spot  where  the  Abbot  Fintan, 
with  some  of  his  monks,  were  chanting  psalms  around  the 
corpse,  and  asked  him  the  favor  of  dying  with  his  brother,  and 
entering  with  him  into  the  heavenly  kingdom.  '  Thy  brother 
is  already  in  heaven,'  replied  Fintan,  '  and  you  cannot  enter  to- 
gether unless  he  rise  again.'  Then  he  knelt  in  prayer,  the  angels 
who  had  received  the  holy  soul  restored  it,  and  the  dead  man, 
rising  in  his  bier,  called  his  brother  :  i  Come,'  said  he,  i  but 
come  quickly  ;  the  angels  await  us.'  At  the  same  time  he  made 
room  beside  him,  and  both,  lying  down,  slept  together  in  death, 
and  ascended  together  to  the  kingdom  of  God." 

This  anecdote  may  tend  better  than  any  thing  else  to  show 
us  how  [Nature  and  grace  were  united  in  the  Irish  soul,  to  warm 
it,  purify  it,  exalt  it  above  ordinary  feelings  and  earthly  passions, 
and  keep  it  constantly  in  a  state  of  energy  and  vitality  unknown 
to  other  peoples.  For,  in  what  page  of  the  ecclesiastical  history 
of  other  nations  do  we  read  of  things  such  as  these  \ 

With  regard  to  their  count?*v,  also,  grace  came  to  the  aid  of 
[Nature  ;  the  supernatural  was,  therefore,  seldom  absent  from  the 
natural  in  their  minds,  and  something  of  this  double  union  has 
remained  in  them  in  every  sense,  and  has,  no  doubt,  contributed 
to  render  their  nationality  imperishable  in  spite  of  persecution. 
How  ardent  and  pure  in  the  heart  of  Columba  was  the  love  of 
Ireland,  from  which  he  was  a  voluntary  exile !  Patrick,  also, 
though  not  native  born,  yielded  to  none  in  that  sacred  feeling  ; 
one  of  the  three  things  he  sought  of  God  on  dying  was,  that  Erin 
should  not  "remain  forever  under  a  foreign  yoke."  Kieran 
offered  the  same  prayer,  and  their  reason  for  thus  praying  was 
that  she  was  the  "  island  of  saints,"  destined  to  help  out  the  sal- 
vation of  many. 

Keligion  has  been  invariably  connected  with  that  acute  senti- 
ment ever  present  in  the  minds  of  Irishmen  for  their  country  ; 
and  it  is,  doubtless,  that  holy  and  supernatural  feeling  which  has 
preserved  a  country  which  enemies  strove  so  strenuously  to  wrest 
from  them. 

But  it  was  not  love  of  country  alone,  of  relatives  9-  nd  friends, 
which  enkindled  in  their  hearts  a  spirit  of  enthusiasm ;  their 
whole  monastic  life  was  one  of  high-spirited  devotedttess,  and 
energy,  and  action,  more  than  human. 

We  see  them  laboring  in  and  around  their  monastic  hive. 
How  they  pray  and  chant  the  divine  office  ;  how  they  study  and 
expound  the  noly  doctrine  to  their  pupils ;  how  they  are  ever 
travelling,  walking  in  procession  by  hundreds  and  by  thousands 
through  the  island,  the  interior  spirit  not  allowing  them  to  stand 


100 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


still.  There  are  so  many  pilgrimages  to  perform,  so  many 
shrines  to  venerate,  so  many  works  of  brotherly  love  to  under- 
take. Other  monks  in  other  countries,  indeed,  did  the  same, 
but  seldom  with  such  universal  ardor.  The  whole  island,  as  we 
said,  is  one  church.  On  all  sides  you  may  meet  bishops,  and 
priests,  and  monks,  bearing  revered  relics,  or  proceeding  to 
found  a  new  convent,  plant  another  sacred  edifice,  or  establish 
a  house  for  the  needy.  The  people  on  the  way  fall  in  and  follow 
their  footsteps,  sharers  of  the  burning  enthusiasm.  Many — how 
many  ! — were  thus  attracted  to  this  mode  of  life,  wherein  there 
was  scarce  aught  earthly,  but  all  breathing  holiness  and  heavenly 
grace ! 

Thus  the  island  was  from  the  beginning  a  holy  island.  But 
zeal  for  God  in  their  own  country  alone  not  being  enough  for 
their  ardor,  those  men  of  God  were  early  moved  by  the  impulse 
of  going  abroad  to  spread  the  faith.  Volumes  might  be  written 
of  their  apostleship  among  barbarous  tribes ;  we  have  room  only 
for  a  few  words. 

They  first  went  to  the  islands  north  of  them,  to  the  Heb- 
rides, the  Faroe  Isles,  and  even  Iceland,  which  they  colonized 
before  the  ^Norwegian  pirates  landed  there.  Then  they  evan- 
gelized Scotland  and  the  north  of  England ;  and,  starting  from 
Lindisfarne,  they  completed  the  work  of  the  conversion  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  which  was  begun  by  St.  August  in  and  his  monks 
in  the  south. 

Finally,  the  whole  continent  of  Western  Europe  offered  itself 
to  their  zeal,  and  at  once  thev  were  ready  to  enter  fully  and  un- 
reservedly  into  the  current  of  new  ideas  and  energies  which  at 
that  time  began  to  renew  the  face  of  that  portion  of  the  world 
overspread  by  barbarians  from  Germany.  Under  the  Merovin- 
gian kings  in  France,  and  later  on,  under  the  Carlovingian 
dynasty,  they  became  celebrated  in  the  east  of  France,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Rhine,  even  in  the  north  through  Germany,  in  the 
heart  of  Switzerland,  and  the  north  of  Italy.  This  is  not  the 
place  to  attempt  even  a  sketch  of  their  missionary  labors,  now 
known  to  all  the  students  of  the  history  of  those  times.  But  we 
may  here  mention  that  at  that  time  the  Irish  monarchs  and 
rulers  became  acquainted  with  continental  dynasties  and  affairs 
through  the  necessary  intercourse  held  by  the  Irish  bishops  and 
monks  with  Rome,  the  centre  of  Catholicity.  Thus  we  see  that 
Malachi  II.  corresponded  with  Charles  the  Bald,  with  a  view  of 
making  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome. 

We  learn  from  the  yellow-book  of  Lecain  that  Conall,  son  of 
Coelmuine,  brought  from  Rome  the  law  of  Sunday,  such  as  was 
afterward  practised  in  Ireland. 

Over  and  above  the  Irish  missionaries  who  kept  up  a  con- 
stant correspondence  from  the  Continent  of  Europe  with  their 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  101 

native  land,  it  is  known  that  many  in  those  early  ages  went  on 
pilgrimages  to  Rome ;  among  others,  St.  Degan,  St.  Kilian,  the 
apostle  of  Franconia ;  St.  Sedulius  the  younger,  who  assisted  at  a 
Roman  council  in  721,  and  was  sent  by  the  Pope  on  a  mission 
to  Spain  ;  St.  Donatus,  afterward  Bishop  of  Fiesole,  and  his 
disciple,  Andrew.  St.  Cathald  went  from  Rome  to  Jerusalem, 
and  on  his  return  was  made  Bishop  of  Tarento.  Donough,  son 
of  Brian  Boru,  went  to  Rome  in  1063,  carrying,  it  is  said,  the 
crown  of  his  father,  and  there  died. 

It  has  been  calculated  that  the  ancient  Irish  monks  held  from 
the  sixth  to  the  ninth  century  thirteen  monasteries  in  Scotland, 
seven  in  France,  twelve  in  Armoric  Gaul,  seven  in  Lotharingia, 
eleven  in  Burgundy,  nine  in  Belgium,  ten  in  Alsatia,  sixteen  in 
Bavaria,  fifteen  in  Rhsetia,  Helvetia,  and  Suevia,  besides  several 
in  Thuringia  and  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine.  Ireland  was 
then  not  only  included  in,  but  at  the  head  of,  the  European 
movement ;  and  yet  that  forms  a  period  in  her  annals  which  as 
yet  has  scarcely  been  studied.  - 

The  religious  zeal  which  was  then  so  manifest  in  the  island 
itself  burned  likewise  among  many  Continental  nations,  and 
lasted  from  the  introduction  of  Christianity  to  the  Danish  in- 
vasion. What  contributed  chiefly  to  make  that  ardor  lasting 
was,  that  every  thing  connected  with  religion  made  a  part  even 
of  their  exterior  life.  Grace  had  taken  entire  possession  of  the 
national  soul.  This  world  was  looked  upon  as  a  shadow,  beauti- 
ful only  in  reflecting  something  of  the  beauty  of  heaven. 

Hence  were  the  Irish  "  the  saints."  So  were  they  titled  by 
all,  and  they  accepted  the  title  with  a  genuine  and  holy  sim- 
plicity which  betokened  a  truer  modesty  than  the  pretended 
denegation  which  we  might  expect.  Thus  they  seemed  above 
temptation.  The  virgins  consecrated  to  God  were  as  numerous 
at  least  as  the  monks.  These  had  also  their  processions  and 
pilgrimages ;  they  went  forth  from  houses  over-full  to  found 
others,  not  knowing  or  calculating  beforehand  the  spot  where 
they  might  rest  and  "  expect  resurrection."  Such  was  their  lan- 
guage. Sometimes  they  applied  at  the  doors  of  monasteries,  and 
if  there  was  no  spot  in  the  neighborhood  suitable  for  the  sis- 
ters, the  monks  abandoned  to  them  their  abode,  their  buildings 
and  cultivated  fields  where  the  crops  were  growing,  taking  with 
them  naught  save  the  sacred  vessels  and  the  books  they  might 
need  in  the  new  establishment  they  went  forth  to  found  else- 
where. 

Who  could  imagine,  then,  that  even  a  thought  could  enter 
their  minds  beyond  those  of  charity  and  kindness  %  Were  they 
not  dead  utterly  to  worldly  passions,  and  living  only  to  God  \ 
It  would  have  been  a  sacrilege  to  have  profaned  the  holy  island, 
not  only  with  an  unlawful  act  but  even  with  a  worldly  imagina- 


102 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


tion.  Had  not  many  holy  men  and  women  seen  angels  con- 
stantly coming  down  from  heaven,  and  the  souls  of  the  just  at 
their  departure  going  straight  from  Ireland  to  heaven  ?  Both  in 
perpetual  communication  !  Had  the  eyes  of  all  been  as  pure  as 
those  of  the  best  among  them,  the  truth  would  have  been  un 
veiled  to  all  alike,  and  the  "  isle  of  saints  "  would  have  shown 
itself  to  them  as  what  it  really  was — a  bright  country  where  re- 
demption  was  a  great  fact ;  where  the  souls  of  the  great  major- 
ity were  truly  and  actually  redeemed  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
word  ;  where  people  might  enjoy  a  foretaste  of  heaven — the  very 
space  above  their  heads  being  to  them  at  all  times  a  road  con- 
necting the  heavenly  mansions  with  this  sublunary  world. 

True  is  it  that  there  were  ever  in  the  island  a  number  of 
great  sinners  who  desecrated  the  holy  spot  they  dwelt  on  by 
their  deeds  of  blood.  The  Saviour  predicted  that  there  should 
be  "  tares  among  the  wheat  "  everywhere  until  the  day  of  judg- 
ment. 

It  was  among  the  chieftains  principally,  almost  entirely,  that 
6in  prevailed.  The  clan-system,  unfortunately,  favored  deadly 
feuds,  which  often  drenched  all  parts  of  the  island  in  blood. 
Family  quarrels,  being  in  themselves  unnatural,  led  to  the  most 
atrocious  crimes.  The  old  Greek  drama  furnishes  frightful  ex- 
amples of  it,  and  similar  passions  sometimes  filled  the  breasts  of 
those  leaders  of  Irish  clans.  Few  of  them  died  in  their  beds. 
When  carried  away  by  passion,  they  respected  nothing  which 
men  generally  respect. 

It  would,  however,  be  an  exaggeration  to  suppose  on  this 
account  a  distinct  and  complete  antagonism  to  have  existed  be- 
tween the  clan  and  the  Church,  and  to  class  all  the  princes  on 
the  side  of  evil  as  opposed  to  the  "  saints,"  whom  we  have  con- 
templated leading  a  celestial  life.  We  know  from  St.  Aengus 
that  one  of  the  glories  of  Ireland  is  that  many  of  her  saints  were 
of  princely  families,  whereas  among  other  nations  generally  the 
Gospel  was  first  accepted  by  the  poor  and  lowly,  and  found  its 
enemies  among  the  higher  and  educated  classes.  But  in  Ireland 
the  great,  side  by  side  with  the  least  of  their  clansmen,  bowed  to 
the  yoke  of  Christ,  and  the  bards  and  learned  men  became 
monks  and  bishops  from  the  very  first  preaching  of  the  Word. 

The  fact  is,  a  great  number  of  kings  and  chieftains  made 
their  station  doubly  renowned  by  their  virtues,  and  find  place 
in  the  chronicle  of  Irish  saints.  Who  can  read,  for  instance,  the 
story  of  King  Guaire  without  admiring  his  faith  and  true  Chris- 
tian spirit? 

It  is  reported  that  as  St.  Caimine  and  St.  Cumain  Fota  were 
one  day  conversing  on  spiritual  things  with  that  holy  king  of 
Connaught,  Caimine  said  to  Guaire,  "  O  king,  could  this  church 
be  filled  on  a  sudden  with  whatever  thou  shouldst  wish,  what 


EEOEPTIOK  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


103 


would  thy  desire  be  ? 99  "I  should  wish,"  replied  the  king,  "  to 
have  all  the  treasures  that  the  church  could  hold,  to  devote  them 
to  the  salvation  of  souls,  the  erection  of  churches,  and  the  wants 
of  Christ's  poor."  "  And  what  wouldst  thou  ask  ? 99  said  the 
king  to  Fota.  "  I  would,"  he  replied,  "  have  as  many  holy 
books  as  the  church  could  contain,  to  give  all  who  seek  divine 
wisdom,  to  spread  among  the  people  the  saving  doctrine  of 
Christ,  and  rescue  souls  from  the  bondage  of  Satan."  Both  then 
turned  to  Caimine.  "  For  my  part,"  said  he,  "  were  this  church 
filled  with  men  afflicted  with  every  form  of  suffering  and  dis- 
ease, I  should  ask  of  God  to  vouchsafe  to  assemble  in  my 
wretched  body  all  their  evils,  all  their  pains,  and  give  me 
strength  to  support  them  patiently,  for  the  love  of  the  Saviour 
of  the  world."  1 

Thus  the  most  sublime  and  supernatural  spirit  of  Christianity 
became  natural  to  the  Irish  mind  in  the  great  as  well  as  in  the 
lowly,  in  the  rich  as  well  as  in  the  poor.  Women  rivalled  men 
in  that  respect. 

"  Daria  was  blind  from  birth.  Once,  whilst  conversing  with 
Bridget,  she  said  :  4  Bless  my  eyes  that  I  may  see  the  world,  and 
gratify  my  longing.'  The  night  was  dark ;  it  grew  light  for 
her,  and  the  world  appeared  to  her  gaze.  But  when  she  had 
beheld  it,  she  turned  again  to  Bridget.  '  Now  close  my  eyes,' 
said  she,  i  for  the  more  one  is  absent  from  the  world,  the  more 
present  he  is  before  God.'  " 

Even  though  one  may  express  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  this 
miracle,  one  thing,  at  least,  is  beyond  doubt :  that  the  spirit  of 
the  words  of  Daria  was  congenial  to  the  Irish  mind  at  the  time, 
and  that  none  but  one  who  had  first  reached  the  highest  point 
of  supernatural  life  could  conceive  or  give  utterance  to  such  a 
sentiment. 

That  more  than  human  life  and  spirit  elevated,  ennobled, 
and,  as  it  were,  divinized,  even  the  ordinary  human  and  natural 
feelings,  which  not  only  ceased  to  become  dangerous,  but  be- 
came, doubtless,  highly  pleasing  to  God  and  meritorious  in  his 
sight.    An  example  may  better  explain  our  meaning : 

"  Ninnid  was  a  young  scholar,  not  over-reverent,  whom  the 
influence  of  Bridget  one  day  suddenly  overcame,  so  that  he 
afterward  appeared  quite  a  different  being.  Bridget  announced 
to  him  that  from  his  hand  she  should,  for  the  last  time,  receive 
the  body  and  blood  of  our  Lord.  Ninnid  resolved  that  his  hand 
should  remain  pure  for  so  high  and  holy  an  office.  He  enclosed 
it  in  an  iron  case,  and  wishing  at  the  same  time  to  postpone,  as 
far  as  lay  in  his  power,  the  moment  that  was  to  take  Bridget 

1  This  passage  is  given  in  Latin  by  Colgan  (Acta  SS.).  In  the  original  Irish, 
translated  and  published  by  Dr.  Todd — Liber  Hymn — there  are  more  details. 


104 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


from  the  world,  he  set  ont  for  Brittany,  throwing  the  key  of  the 
box  into  the  sea.  But  the  designs  of  God  are  immutable.  TVlien 
Bridget's  hour  had  come,  Ninnid  was  driven  by  a  storm  on  th« 
Irish  coast,  and  the  kev  was  miraculously  given  up  by  the  deep." 

Where,  except  in  Ireland,  could  such  friendship  continue  for 
long  years,  without  giving  cause  not  only  for  the  least  scandal, 
but  even  for  the  remotest  danger  ?  In  that  island  the  natural 
feelings  of  the  human  heart  were  wholly  absorbed  by  heavenly 
emotions,  in  which  nothing  earthly  could  be  found  \  Hence  the 
celebrated  division  of  the  u  three  orders  of  the  Irish  saints,"  the 
first  being  so  far  above  temptation  that  no  regulation  was  imposed 
on  the  Cenobites  with  respect  to  their  intercourse  with  women. 

"  Women  were  welcome  and  cared  for  ;  they  were  admitted, 
so  to  speak,  to  the  sanctuary  ;  it  was  shared  with  them,  occupied 
in  common.  Double,  or  even  mixed  monasteries,  so  near  to 
each  other  as  to  form  but  one,  brought  the  two  sexes  together 
for  mutual  edification ;  men  became  instructors  of  women ; 
women  of  men." 

Nothing  of  the  kind  was  ever  witnessed  elsewhere ;  nothing 
of  the  kind  was  to  be  seen  ever  after.  Robert  of  Arbrissel 
established  something  similar  in  the  order  of  Fontevrault  in 
France ;  but  there  it  was  a  strange  and  very  uncommon  excep- 
tion :  in  Ireland  for  two  centuries  it  was  the  rule.  This  alone 
would  show  how  completely  the  Christian  spirit  had  taken  pos- 
session of  the  whole  race  from  the  first. 

It  is  this  which  gives  to  Irish  hagiology  a  peculiar  character, 
making  it  appear  strange  even  to  the  best  men  of  other  nations. 
The  elevation  of  human  feeling  to  such  a  height  of  perfection  is 
so  unusual  that  men  cannot  fail  to  be  surprised  wherever  they 
may  meet  it. 

Yet  far  from  appearing  strange,  almost  inexplicable,  it  would 
have  been  recognized  as  the  natural  result  of  the  working  of  the 
Christian  religion,  if  the  spirit  brought  on  earth  by  our  Lord 
had  been  more  thoroughly  diffused  among  men,  if  all  had  been 
penetrated  by  it  to  the  same  degree,  if  all  had  equally  under- 
stood the  meaning  of  the  Gospel  preached  to  them. 

But,  unfortunately,  so  many  and  so  great  were  the  obstacles 
opposed  everywhere  to  the  working  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the 
souls  of  men,  that  comparatively  few  were  capable  of  being  alto- 
gether transformed  into  beings  of  another  nature. 

The  great  mass  lagged  far  behind  in  the  race  of  perfection. 
They  were  admitted  to  the  fold  of  Christ,  and  lived  generally  at 
least  in  the  practice  of  the  commandments  ;  but  the  object  pro- 
posed to  himself  by  the  Saviour  of  mankind  was.  imperfectly 
carried  out  on  earth.  The  life  of  the  world  was  far  from  being 
impregnated  by  the  spirit  which  he  brought  from  heaven. 

In  the  "  island  of  saints "  we  certainly  see  a  great  number 


RECEPTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


105 


open  out  at  once  to  the  fulness  of  that  divine  influence.  Herein 
we  have  the  explanation  of  the  deep  faith  which  has  ever  since 
been  the  characteristic  of  the  people.  "  Centuries  have  perpetu- 
ated the  alliance  of  Catholicity  and  Ireland.  Revolutions  have 
failed  to  shake  it ;  persecution  has  not  broken  it ;  it  has  gained 
strength  in  blood  and  tears,  and  we  may  believe,  after  thirteen 
centuries  of  trial,  that  the  Roman  faith  will  disappear  from  Ire- 
land only  with  the  name  of  Patrick  and  the  last  Irishman." 

Note. — It  is  known  that  F.  Colgan,  a  Franciscan,  undertook  to  publish 
the  "Acta  Sanctorum  Hiberniee."  He  edited  only  two  volumes :  the  first 
under  the  title  of  "Trias  thaumaturga  "  containing  the  various  lives  of  St. 
Patrick,  St.  Columba,  and  St.  Bridget : — the  second  under  the  general  title 
of  "Acta  SS." — Barnwall,  an  Irishman  born  and  educated  in  France,  pub- 
lished the  "  Histoire  Legendaire  d'Irlande,"  in  which  he  collected,  without 
much  order,  a  number  of  passages  of  Colgan's  "  Acta,"  and  Mr.  J.  G.  Shea 
translated  and  published  it.  "We  have  taken  from  this  translation  several 
facts  contained  in  this  chapter,  the  work  of  the  Franciscan  being  not  acces- 
sible to  us. 

Dr.  Todd,  from  Irish  MSS.,  has  given  a  few  pages  showing  the  accuracy 
of  Colgan,  although  the  good  father  did  not  scruple  occasionally  to  condense 
and  abridge,  unless  the  MSS.  he  used  differed  from  those  of  Dr.  Todd.  The 
whole  is  a  rich  mine  of  interesting  anecdotes,  and  Montalembert  has  shown 
what  a  skilful  writer  can  find  in  those  pages  forgotten  since  the  sixteenth 
century.  Mr.  Froude  himself  has  acknowledged  that  the  eighth  was  the 
golden  age  of  Ireland. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  CHRISTIAN  IRISH  AND  THE  PAGAN  DANES. 

For  several  centuries  the  Irish  continued  in  the  happy  state  de- 
scribed in  the  last  chapter.  While  the  whole  European  Conti- 
nent was  convulsed  by  the  irruptions  of  the  Germanic  tribes,  and 
of  the  Huns,  more  savage  still,  the  island  was  at  peace,  opened 
her  schools  to  the  youth  of  all  countries — to  Anglo-Saxons 
chiefly — and  spread  her  name  abroad  as  the  happy  and  holy 
isle,  the  dwelling  of  the  saints,  the  land  of  prodigies,  the  most 
blessed  spot  on  the  earth.  No  invading  host  troubled  her  ;  the 
various  Teutonic  nations  knew  less  of  the  sea  than  the  Celts 
themselves,  and  no  vessel  neared  the  Irish  coast  save  the  peace- 
ful curraghs  which  carried  her  monks  and  missionaries  abroad, 
or  her  own  sons  in  quest  of  food  and  adventure. 

Providence  would  seem  to  have  imposed  upon  the  nation 
the  lofty  mission  of  healing  the  wounds  of  other  nations  as  they 
lay  helpless  in  the  throes  of  death,  of  keeping  the  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel  alive  in  Europe,  after  those  terrible  invasions,  and  of 
leading  into  the  fold  of  Christ  many  a  shepherdless  flock.  The 
peaceful  messengers  who  went  forth  from  Ireland  became  as 
celebrated  as  her  home  schools  and  monasteries  ;  and  well  had  it 
been  for  the  Irish  could  such  a  national  life  as  this  have  con- 
tinued. 

But  God,  who  wished  to  prepare  them  for  still  greater  things 
in  future  ages,  who  proves  by  suffering  all  whom  he  wishes  to 
use  as  his  best  instruments,  allowed  the  fury  of  the  storm  to 
burst  suddenly  upon  them.  It  was  but  the  beginning  of  their 
woes,  the  first  step  in  that  long  road  to  Calvary,  where  they 
were  to  be  crucified  with  him,  to  be  crucified  wellni^h  to  the 
death  before  their  final  and  almost  miraculous  resurrection.  The 
Danes  were  to  be  the  first  torturers  of  that  happy  and  holy 
people ;  the  hardy  rovers  of  the  northern  seas  were  coming  to 
inaugurate  a  long  era  of  woe. 

The  Scandinavian  irruption  which  desolated  Europe  just  as 
she  was  beginning  to  recover  from  the  effects  of  the  first  great 
Germanic  wave,  may  be  said  to  have  lasted  from  the  eighth  to 


TIIE  IRISH  AND  TEE  DANES. 


107 


the  twelfth  century.  Down  from  the  North  Sea  came  the  shock ; 
Ireland  was  consequently  one  of  the  first  to  feel  it,  and  we  shall 
see  how  she  alone  withstood  and  finally  overcame  it. 

The  better  to  understand  the  fierceness  of  the  attack,  let  us 
first  consider  its  origin  : 

The  Baltic  Sea  and  the  various  gulfs  connected  with  it  pene- 
trate deeply  the  northern  portion  of  the  Continent  of  Europe. 
Its  indentations  form  two  peninsulas :  a  large  one,  known  under 
the  name  of  Norway  and  Sweden,  and  a  lesser  one  on  the  south- 
west, now  called  Denmark.  The  first  was  known  to  the  Romans 
as  Scania ;  the  second  was  called  by  them  the  Cimbric  Cherso- 
nesus.  From  Scania  is  derived  the  name  Scandinavians,  after- 
ward given  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  whole  country.  Besides 
these  two  peninsulas,  there  are  several  islands  scattered  through 
the  surrounding  sea. 

The  frozen  and  barren  land  which  this  people  inhabited 
obliged  them  from  time  immemorial  to  depend  on  the  ocean 
for  their  sustenance :  first,  by  fishing ;  later  on,  by  piracy.  They 
soon  became  expert  navigators,  though  their  ships  were  merely 
small  boats  made  of  a  few  pieces  of  timber  joined  together,  and 
covered  with  the  hide  of  the  walrus  and  the  seal. 

It  seems,  from  the  Irish  annals,  that  they  belonged  to  two 
distinct  races  of  men  :  the  Norwegians,  fair-haired  and  of  large 
stature ;  the  Danes  dark,  and  of  smaller  size.  Hence  the  Irish 
distinguished  the  first,  whom  they  called  Finn  Galls,  from  the 
second,  whom  they  named  Dubh  Galls.  By  no  other  European 
nation  was  this  distinction  drawn,  the  Irish  being  more  exact  in 
observing  their  foes. 

It  is  the  general  opinion  of  modern  writers  that  they  be- 
longed to  the  Teutonic  family.  The  Goths,  a  Teutonic  tribe,  ' 
dwelt  for  a  long  period  on  the  larger  peninsula.  But  whether 
the  Goths  were  of  the  same  race  as  the  Norwegians  or  Danes  is 
a  question.  Certain  it  is  that  the  various  German  nations  which 
first  overwhelmed  the  Roman  Empire  bore  many  characteristics 
different  from  those  of  the  Danes  and  Norwegians,  though  the 
language  of  all  indicated,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  common  origin. 

The  Swedes,  the  inhabitants  of  the  eastern  coast  of  Scania, 
do  not  appear  to  have  taken  an  important  part  in  the  Scandi- 
navian invasions;  nor,  indeed,  have  they  ever  been  so  fond  of 
maritime  enterprises  as  the  two  other  nations.  Moreover,  they 
were  at  that  time  in  bloody  conflict  with  the  Goths,  and  too 
busy  at  home  to  think  of  foreign  conquest. 

For  a  long  time  the  Scandinavian  pirates  seem  to  have  con- 
fined themselves  to  scouring  their  own  seas,  and  plundering  the 
coasts  as  far  as  the  gulfs  of  Finland  and  Bothnia.  At  length, 
emboldened  by  success,  they  ventured  out  into  the  ocean,  at- 
tacked the  nations  of  Western  and  Southern  Europe,  and  in  the 


108 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


west  colonized  the  frozen  shores  of  the  Shetland  and  Faroe 
Islands,  and  soon  after  Iceland  and  Greenland. 

For  several  centuries  the  harbors  of  Denmark  and  Norway 
became  the  storehouses  of  all  the  riches  of  Europe,  and  a  large 
trade  was  carried  on  between  those  northern  peninsulas  and  the 
various  islands  of  the  Northern  and  Arctic  Seas,  even  with  the 
coast  of  America,  of  which  Greenland  seems  to  form  a  part. 

Those  stern  and  mountainous  countries  and  the  restless 
ocean  which  divides  them  were  for  the  Scandinavian  pirates 
what  the  Mediterranean  and  the  coasts  of  Spain  and  Africa  had 
long  before  been  for  the  Phoenicians  and  Carthaginians.  These 
peoples  were  clearly  destined  to  introduce  among  modern  na- 
tions the  spirit  of  commerce  and  enterprise. 

But  here  it  is  well  to  consider  their  religious  and  social  state 
from  which  nations  chiefly  derive  their  noble  or  ignoble  quali- 
ties. We  shall  find  both  made  up  of  the  rankest  idolatry,  of 
cruel  manners  and  revolting  customs. 

Their  system  of  worship,  with  its  creed  and  rites,  is  much 
more  precise  in  character  and  better  known  to  us  than  that  of 
the  Celts.  If  we  open  the  books  which  were  written  in  Europe 
at  the  time  of  the  irruption  of  these  Northmen,  and  the  poems 
of  those  savage  tribes  preserved  to  our  own  days,  and  comprised 
under  the  name  of  Edda,  besides  the  numerous  sagas,  or  songs 
and  ballads,  which  we  still  possess,  we  find  mention  of  three 
superior  gods  and  a  number  of  inferior  deities,  which  gave  a 
peculiar  character  to  this  Northern  worship. 

They  were  Thor,  the  god  of  the  elements,  of  thunder  chiefly ; 
"Wodan  or  Odin,  the  god  of  war  ;  and  Frigga,  the  goddess  of  lust ; 
the  long  list  of  others  it  is  unnecessary  to  give.  Their  religion, 
therefore,  consisted  mainly :  1.  In  battling  with  the  elements, 
particularly  on  the  sea,  under  the  protection  of  Thor;  2.  In 
slaying  their  enemies,  or  being  themselves  slain,  as  Odin  willed 
— the  giving  or  receiving  death  being  apparently  the  great  ob- 
ject ot  existence ;  3.  In  abandoning  themselves  at  the  time  of 
victory  to  all  the  propensities  of  corrupt  nature,  which  they  took 
to  be  the  express  will  of  Frigga  manifested  in  their  unbridled 
passions. 

Such  was  Scandinavian  mythology  in  its  reality. 

Modern  investigators,  principally  in  Germany  and  France, 
find  in  the  Edda  a  complete  system  of  cosmogony  and  of  a  re- 
ligion almost  inspired,  so  beautiful  do  they  make  it.  At  least 
they  have  made  it  appear  as  profound  a  philosophy  as  that  of  old 
Hindostan  and  far-on  Thibet.  By  grouping  around  those  three 
great  divinities,  which  are  supposed  to  be  emblematical  of  the 
superior  natural  forces,  their  numerous  progeny,  that  of  Odin 
especially,  together  with  an  incredible  number  of  malicious 
giants  and  good-natured  ases — a  kind  of  fairy — any  skilful  theo- 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


109 


ristj  gifted  with  the  requisite  imagination,  may  extract  from  the 
whole  an  almost  perfect  system  of  cosmogony  and  ethics.  Then 
the  disgusting  legends  of  the  Edda  and  the  sagas  are  straigntway 
transformed  into  interesting  myths,  offsprings  of  poetry  and 
imagination,  and  conveying  to  the  mind  a  philosophy  only  less 
than  sublime,  derived,  as  they  say,  from  the  religion  of  Zoro- 
aster. 

It  is,  as  we  said,  in  Germany  and  France  chiefly  that  these 
discoveries  have  been  made.  The  English,  a  more  sober  people, 
although  of  Scandinavian  blood,  do  not  set  so  high  a  value  on 
what  is,  in  the  literal  sense,  so  low. 

Pity  that  such  pleasing  speculations  should  be  mere  theo- 
retical bubbles,  unable  to  retain  their  lightness  and  their  vi  rid 
colors  in  the  rude  atmosphere  of  the  arctic  regions,  bursting  at 
the  first  breath  of  the  north  wind  !  How  could  sensible  men, 
under  such  a  complicated  system  of  religion  and  physics,  account 
for  the  uncouth  pirates  of  the  Baltic  % 

As  useless  is  it  to  say  that  they  brought  it  from  the  place  of 
their  origin — Persia,  as  these  theorists  affirm.  To  a  man  unin- 
fluenced by  a  preconceived  or  pet  system,  it  is  evident  at  first 
sight  that  no  mythology  of  the  East  or  of  the  South  has  ever 
given  rise  to  that  of  Scandinavia.  There  is  not  the  slightest  re- 
semblance between  it  and  any  other.  It  must  have  originated 
with  the  Scandinavians  themselves ;  and  their  long  religious 
tales  were  only  the  bloody  dreams  of  their  fancy,  when,  during 
their  dreary  winter  evenings,  they  had  nothing  to  do  but  relate 
to  each  other  what  came  uppermost  in  their  gross  minds. 

Saxo  Grammaticus,  certainly  a  competent  authority,  and 
Snorry  Sturleson,  the  first  to  translate  the  Edda  into  Latin,  who 
is  still  considered  one  of  the  greatest  antiquarians  of  the  nation . 
— both  of  whom  lived  in  the  times  we  speak  of,  when  this  re- 
ligious system  still-  flourished  or  was  fresh  in  the  minds  of  all — 
solved  the  question  ages  ago,  and  demonstrated  beforehand  the 
falsehood  of  those  future  theories  by  stating  with  old-time  sim- 
plicity that  the  abominable  stories  of  the  Edda  and  the  sagas 
were  founded  on  real  facts  in  the  previous  history  of  those  na- 
tions, and  were  consequently  never  intended  by  the  writers  as 
imaginative  myths,  representing,  under  a  figurative  and  repulsive 
exterior,  some  semblance  of  a  spiritual  and  refined  doctrine. 

We  must  look  to  our  own  more  enlightened  times  to  find 
ingenious  interpreters  of  rude  old  songs  first  flung  to  the  breeze 
nine  hundred  years  ago  in  the  polar  seas,  and  bellowed  forth  in 
boisterous  and  drunken  chorus  during  the  ninth  and  tenth  cen- 
turies by  ferocious,  but  to  modern  eyes  romantic,  pirates  reeking 
with  the  gore  of  their  enemies. 

Because  it  has  pleased  some  modern  pantheist  to  concoct 
Bystems  of  religion  in  his  cabinet,  does  it  become  at  mce  clear 


110 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


that  the  mythic  explanation  of  those  songs  is  the  only  one  to  be 
admitted,  and  that  the  odious  facts  which  those  legends  express 
ought  to  be  discarded  altogether  \  At  least  we  hope  that,  when 
philosophers  come  to  be  the  real  rulers  of  the  world,  they  will 
not  give  to  their  subtle  and  abstract  ideas  of  religion  the  same 
pleasant  turn  and  the  same  concrete  expression  in  every-day  life 
that  the  worshippers  of  Odin,  Thor,  and  Frigga,  found  it  agree- 
able to  give  when  they  were  masters  of  the  continent  and  rulers 
of  the  seas. 

No  !  The  only  true  meaning  of  this  Northern  worship  is 
conveyed  in  the  simple  words  of  Adam  of  Bremen,  when  relating 
what  still  existed  in  his  own  time.  (Descript.  insularum  Aquil., 
lib.  iv.)  He  describes  the  solemn  sacrifices  of  Upsala  in  Sweden 
thus :  "  This  is  their  sacrifice ;  of  each  and  all  animals  they  offer 
nine  heads  of  the  male  gender,  by  whose  blood  it  is  their  custom 
to  appease  the  gods.  The  dead  bodies  of  the  victims  are  sus- 
pended in  a  grove  which  surrounds  the  temple.  The  place  is  in 
their  eyes  invested  with  such  a  sacred  character  that  the  trees 
are  believed  to  be  divine  on  account  of  the  blood  and  gore  with 
which  they  are  besmeared.  With  the  animals,  dogs,  horses,  etc., 
they  suspend  likewise  men  ;  and  a  Christian  of  that  country  told 
me  that  he  had  himself  seen  them  with  his  own  eyes  mixed  up 
together  in  the  grove.  But  the  senseless  rites  which  accompany 
the  sacrifice  and  the  sprinkling  of  blood  are  so  many,  and  of  so 
gross  and  immoral  nature,  that  it  is  better  not  to  speak  of  them." 

We  have  here  the  naked  truth,  and  no  meaning  whatever 
could  be  attached  to  such  ceremonies  other  than  that  of  the  rank- 
est idolatry.  To  complete  the  picture,  it  is  proper  to  state  that 
Thor, Odin,  and  Frigga,  were  frightful  idols,  as  represented  in  the 
Upsala  temple,  and  the  small  statues  carried  by  the  Scandinavian 
sailors  on  their  expeditions  and  set  in  the  place  of  honor  on 
board  their  ships,  were  but  diminutive  copies  of  the  hideous 
originals.  It  is  known,  moreover,  that  Odin  had  existed  as  a 
leader  of  some  of  their  migrations,  so  that  their  idolatry  resolved 
itself  into  hero-worship. 

Having  spoken  of  their  gods,  we  have  only  a  word  to  add  on 
their  belief  in  a  future  state,  for  every  one  is  acquainted  with 
their  brutal  and  shocking  Walhalla.  Yet,  such  as  it  was,  admit- 
tance to  its  halls  could  only  be  aspired  to  by  the  warriors  and 
heroes,  the  great  among  them  ;  the  common  herd  was  not  deemed 
worthy  of  immortality.  Thus  aristocratic  pride  showed  itself 
at  the  very  bottom  of  their  religion.  . 

Of  their  social  state,  their  government,  we  know  little.  They 
lived  under  a  kind  cf  rude  monarchy,  subject  often  to  election, 
when  they  chose  the  most  savage  and  the  bravest  for  their  ruler. 
But  blood-relationship  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  their 
system,  so  different  from  that  of  the  Celts.    The  sons  of  a  chief- 


THE  IRISH  AKb  THE  DANES. 


Ill 


tain  could  never  form  a  sept,  but  at  his  death  the  eldest  replaced 
him ;  the  younger  brothers,  deprived  of  their  titles  and  goods, 
were  forced  to  separate  and  acquire  a  title  to  rank  and  honor  by 
piracy  ;  and  that  right  of  primogeniture,  which  was  the  primary 
cause  of  their  sea  invasions,  stamped  the  feudal  system  with  one 
of  its  chief  characteristics,  a  system  which  probably  originated 
with  them.  Some,  however,  entertain  a  contrary  opinion,  and 
suppose  that  at  the  death  of  the  father  his  children  shared  his 
inheritance  equally. 

Of  their  moral  habits  we  may  best  judge  by  their  religion.  All 
we  know  of  their  history  seems  to  prove  that  with  them  might 
was  right,  and  outlawry  the  only  penalty  of  their  laws. 

A  man  guilty  of  murder  was  compelled  to  quit  the  country, 
unless  his  superior  daring  and  the  number  of  his  friends  and  fol- 
lowers enabled  him,  by  more  atrocious  and  wholesale  murders, 
still  to  become  a  great  chieftain  and  even  aspire  to  supreme 
power.  Iceland  was  colonized  by  outlaws  from  ISorway ;  and 
the  frequent  changes  of  dynasty  in  pagan  times  prove  that  among 
them,  as  among  barbarous  tribes  generally,  brute  force  was  the 
chief  source  of  law  and  authority. 

That  outlawry  was  not  esteemed  a  stain  on  the  character  is 
sufficiently  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  the  mere  accident  of 
birth  made  outlaws  of  all  the  children  of  chieftains  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  eldest  born  ;  the  necessity  for  the  younger  sons 
abandoning  their  home  and  native  country,  and  roaming  the 
ocean  in  search  of  plunder,  being  exactly  equivalent,  according 
to  their  opinion  and  customs,  to  criminal  outlawry  of  whatever 
character.   This,  at  least,  many  authors  assert  without  hesitation. 

Their  domestic  habits  were  fit  consequences  of  such  a  state 
of  societv.  There  could  exist  no  real  tie  of  kindred,  no  filial  or 
brotherly  affection  among  men  living  under  such  a  social  system. 
The  gratification  of  brutal  passions  and  the  most  utter  selfish- 
ness constituted  the  rule  for  all ;  and  even  the  fear  of  an  inex- 
orable judge  after  death  could  not  restrain  them  during  life,  as 
might  have  been  the  case  among  other  pagan  nations,  since  the 
hope  of  reaching  their  "Walhalla  depended  for  its  fulfilment  on 
murder  or  suicide. 

With  their  system  of  warfare  we  are  better  acquainted  than 
with  any  thing  else  belonging  to  them,  as  the  main  burden  of 
their  songs  was  the  recital  of  their  barbarous  expeditions.  It  is, 
indeed,  difficult  for  a  modern  reader  to  wade  through  the  whole 
of  their  Edda  poems,  or  even  their  long  sagas,  so  full  is  their 
literature  of  unimaginable  cruelties.  Yet  a  general  view  of  it  is 
necessary  in  order  to  understand  the  horror  spread  throughout 
Europe  by  their  inhuman  warfare. 

As  soon  as  the  warm  breeze  of  an  early  spring  thaws  the  ice 
on  his  rivers  and  lakes,  the  Scandinavian  Viking  unfurls  his  sail, 


112 


THE  IRISH  AKD  THE  DANES. 


fills  his  rude  boat  with  provisions,  and  trusts  himself  to  the  mercy 
of  the  waves.  Should  he  be  alone,  and  not  powerful  enough  to 
have  a  fleet  at  his  command,  he  looks  out  for  a  single  boat  of  his 
own  nation — there  being  no  other  in  those  seas.  Urged  by  a 
mutual  impulse,  the  two  crews  attack  each  other  at  sight ;  the 
sea  reddens  with  blood;  the  savage  bravery  is  equal  on  both 
sides  ;  accident  alone  can  decide  the  contest.  One  of  the  crews 
conquers  by  the  death  of  all  its  opponents  ;  the  plunder  is  trans- 
ferred to  the  victorious  boat ;  the  cup  of  strong  drink  passes 
round,  and  victory  is  crowned  by  drunkenness. 

But  if  the  two  chieftains  have  contended  from  morning  till 
night  with  equal  valor  and  success,  then,  filled  with  admiration 
fbr  each  other,  they  become  friends,  unite  their  forces,  and,  falling 
on  the  first  spot  where  they  can  land,  they  pillage,  slay,  outrage 
women,  and  give  full  sway  to  their  unbridled  passions.  The 
more  ferocious  they  are  the  braver  they  esteem  themselves.  It 
is  a  positive  fact,  as  we  may  gather  from  all  their  poems  and 
songs,  that  the  Scandinavians  alone,  probably,  of  all  pagan  na- 
tions, have  had  no  measure  of  bravery  and  military  glory  beyond 
the  infliction  of  the  most  exquisite  torture  and  the  most  horrible 
of  deaths. 

Plunder,  which  was  apparently  the  motive  power  of  all  their 
expeditions,  was  to  them  less  attractive  than  blood  ;  blood,  there- 
fore, is  the  chief  burden  of  their  poetry,  if  poetry  it  can  be  called. 
It  would  seem  as  though  they  were  destined  by  Nature  to  shed 
human  blood  in  torrents — the  noblest  occupation,  according  to 
their  ideas,  in  which  a  brave  man  could  be  engaged. 

The  figures  of  their  rude  literature  consist  for  the  most  part 
of  monstrous  warriors  and  gods,  each  possessed  of  many  arms  to 
kill  a  greater  number  of  enemies,  or  of  giant  stature  to  overcome 
all  obstacles,  or  of  enchanted  swords  which  shore  steel  as  easily 
as  linen,  and  clave  the  body  of  an  adversary  as  it  would  the  air. 

Then,  heated  with  blood,  the  Northman  is  also  influenced 
with  lust,  for  he  worships  Frigga  as  well  as  Odin.  But  this  is 
not  the  place  to  give  even  an  idea  of  manners  too  revolting  to  be 
presented  to  the  imagination  of  the  reader. 

Cantii's  Universal  History  will  furnish  all  the  authorities 
from  which  the  details  we  have  given  and  many  others  of  the 
same  kind  are  derived. 

We  do  not  propose  describing  here  the  horrors  of  the  devas- 
tations committed  by  the  Anglo-Saxons  and  Danes  in  England, 
by  the  Normans  in  France,  Spain,  and  Italy.  All  these  nations, 
even  the  first,  were  Scandinavians,  and  naturally  fall  under  our 
review.  The  story  is  already  known  to  those  who  are  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  mediaeval  Europe.  The  only  thing  which  we 
do  not  wish  to  omit  is  the  invariable  system  of  warfare  adopted 
by  this  people  when  acting  on  a  large  scale. 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


113 


Arrived  on  the  coast  they  had  determined  to  ravage,  they 
soon  found  that  in  stormy  weather  they  were  in  a  more  dangerous 
position  than  at  sea.  Hence  they  looked  for  a  deep  bay,  or,  better 
still,  the  mouth  of  a  large  rive.,  and  once  on  its  placid  bosom 
they  felt  themselves  masters  of  the  whole  country.  The  terror 
of  the  people,  the  lack  of  organization  for  defence,  so  character- 
istic of  Celtic  or  purely  Germano-Franco  society,  the  savage 
bravery  and  reckless  impetuosity  of  the  invaders  themselves, 
increased  their  rashness,  and  urged  them  to  enter  fearlessly  into 
the  very  heart  of  a  country  which  lay  prostrate  with  fear  before 
them.  All  the  cities  on  the  river-banks  were  plundered  as  they 
passed,  people  of  whatever  age,  sex,  or  condition,  were  murdered ; 
the  churches  especially  were  despoiled  of  their  riches,  and  the 
numerous  and  wealthy  monasteries  then  existing  were  given  to 
the  flames,  after  the  monks  and  all  the  inmates  even  to  the  school- 
children, had  been  promiscuously  slaughtered,  if  they  had  not 
escaped  by  flight. 

But,  although  all  were  slaughtered  promiscuously,  a  special 
ferocity  was  always  displayed  by  the  barbarous  conqueror  tow- 
ard the  unarmed  and  defenceless  ministers  of  religion.  They 
took  a  particular  delight  in  their  case  in  adding  insult  to  cruelty  ; 
and  not  without  reason  did  the  Church  at  that  time  consider  as 
martyrs  the  priests  and  monks  who  were  slain  by  the  pagan 
Scandinavians.  Their  sanguinary  and  hideous  idolatry  showed 
its  hatred  of  truth  and  holiness  in  always  manifesting  a  pecul- 
iar atrocity  when  coming  in  contact  with  the  Church  of  Christ 
and  her  ministers.  And,  our  chief  object  in  speaking  of  the 
stand  made  by  the  Irish  against  the  pagan  Danes  is,  to  show  how 
the  clan-system  became  in  truth  the  avenger  of  God's  altars  and 
the  preserver  of  the  sacred  edifices  and  numerous  temples  with 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Island  of  Saints  was  so  profusely 
studded,  from  total  annihilation. 

Knowing  that,  when  their  march  of  destruction  had  taken 
them  a  great  distance  from  the  mouth  of  the  river,  the  inhabitants 
might  rise  in  sheer  despair  and  cut  them  off  on  their  return,  the 
Scandinavian  pirates,  to  guard  against  such  a  contingency,  looked 
for  some  island  or  projecting  rock,  difficult  of  access,  which  they 
fortified,  and,  placing  there  the  plunder  which  loaded  their  boats, 
they  left  a  portion  of  their  forces  to  guard  it,  while  the  remainder 
continued  their  route  of  depredation.  In  Ireland  they  found 
spots  admirably  adapted  for  their  purpose  in  the  numerous 
loughs  into  which  many  of  the  rivers  run. 

This  was  their  invariable  system  of  warfare  in  the  rivers  of 
England ;  in  Germany  along  the  Rhine ;  along  the  Seine,  the 
Loire,  and  the  Garonne,  in  France,  as  well  as  on  the  Tagus  and 
Guadalquivir  in  Spain,  where  two  at  least  of  their  large  expeditions 
penetrated.    This  continued  for  several  centuries,  until  at  last 

8 


114 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


they  thought  of  occupying  the  country  which  they  had  devastated 
and  depopulated,  and  they  began  to  form  permanent  settlements 
in  England,  Flanders,  France,  and  even  Sicily  and  Naples. 

When  that  time  had  arrived,  they  showed  that,  hidden  under 
their  ferocious  exterior,  lay  a  deep  and  systematic  mind,  capable  of 
great  thoughts  and  profound  designs.  Already  in  their  own  rude 
country  they  had  organized  commerce  on  an  extensive  scale,  and 
their  harbors  teemed  with  richly-laden  ships,  coming  from  far  dis- 
tances or  preparing  to  start  on  long  voyages.  They  had  become  a 
great  colonizing  race,  and,  after  establishing  their  sway  in  the  Heb- 
rides, the  Orkneys,  the  Faroe  Islands,  Iceland,  and  Greenland, 
they  made  England  their  own,  first  by  the  Jute  and  Anglo-Saxon 
tribes,  then  by  the  arms  of  Denmark,  which  was  at  that  time  so 
powerful  that  England  actually  became  a  colony  of  Copenhagen  ; 
and  finally  they  thought  of  extending  their  conquests  farther 
south  to  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  where  their  ships  rode  at  anchor 
in  the  harbors  of  fair  Sicily. 

TVe  know,  from  many  chronicles  written  at  the  time,  with 
what  care  they  surveyed  all  the  countries  they  occupied,  confis- 
cating the  land  after  having  destroyed  or  reduced  its  inhabitants 
to  slavery ;  dividing  it  among  themselves  and  establishing  their 
barbarous  laws  and  feudal  customs  wherever  they  went.  Dudo 
of  St.  Quentin,  among  other  writers,  describes  at  length  in  his 
rude  poem  the  army  of  surveyors  intrusted  by  Kollo,  the  first 
Duke  of  N ormandy,  with  the  care  of  drawing  up  a  map  of  their 
conquests  in  France,  for  the  purpose  of  dividing  the  whole  among 
his  rough  followers  and  vassals. 

Of  this  spirit  of  organization  we  intend  to  speak  in  the  next 
chapter,  when  we  come  to  consider  the  Anglo-Norman  invasion 
of  Ireland ;  but  we  are  not  to  conclude  that  the  Northmen  became 
straightway  civilized,  and  that  the  spirit  of  refinement  at  once 
shed  its  mild  manners  and  gentle  habits  over  their  newly-con- 
structed towns  and  castles.  For  a  long  time  they  remained  as 
barbarous  as  ever,  with  only  a  system  more  perfect  and  a  method 
more  scientific — if  we  may  apply  such  expressions  to  the  case — 
in  their  plunderings  and  murderous  expeditions. 

Of  Hastings,  their  last  pagan  sea-kong,  Dudo,  the  great 
admirer  of  Northmen  and  the  sycophant  of  the  first  Norman 
dukes  in  France,  has  left  the  following  terrible  character,  on 
reading  which  in  full  we  scarcely  know  whether  the  poem  waa 
written  in  reproach  or  praise.    We  translate  from  the  Latin. 

According  to  Dudo,  he  was — 

"  A  wretch  accursed  and  fierce  of  heart, 
Unmatched  in  dark  iniquities ; 
A  scowling  pest  of  deadly  hate, 
He  throve  on  savage  cruelties. 


THE  IRISH  AKD  THE  DANES. 


115 


Blood-thirsty,  stained  with  every  crime, 

An  artful,  cunning,  deadly  foe, 
Lawless,  vaunting,  rash,  inconstant, 

True  well-spring  of  unending  woe  !" 

Hastings  never  yielded  to  the  new  religion,  which  he  always 
hated  and  persecuted.  But,  even  after  their  conversion  to  Chris- 
tianity, his  countrymen  for  a  long  time  retained  their  inborn  love 
of  bloodshed  and  tyranny ;  they  were  in  this  respect,  as  in  many 
others,  the  very  reverse  of  the  Irish. 

Of  Rollo,  the  first  Christian  Duke  of  Normandy,  Adhemar,  a 
contemporary  writer,  says : 

"On  becoming  Christian,  he  caused  many  captives  to  be 
beheaded  in  his  presence,  in  honor  of  the  gods  whom  he  had 
worshipped.  And  he  also  distributed  a  vast  amount  of  money 
to  the  Christian  churches  in  honor  of  the  true  God  in  whose 
name  he  had  received  baptism : "  which  would  seem  to  imply  that 
this  transaction  occurred  on  the  very  day  of  his  baptism. 

We  may  now  compare  the  success  which  attended  the  arms 
of  these  terrible  invaders  throughout  the  rest  of  Europe  with  their 
complete  failure  in  Ireland.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  deep  attach- 
ment of  the  Irish  Celts  for  their  religion,  its  altars,  shrines,  and 
monuments,  was  the  real  cause  of  their  final  victory.  We  shall 
behold  a  truly  Christian  people  battling  against  paganism  in  its 
most  revolting  and  audacious  form. 

But,  first,  how  stood  the  case  in  England  ? 

"  It  is  not  a  little  extraordinary,"  says  a  sagacious  writer  in 
the  Dublin  Review  (vol.  xxxii.,  p.  203),  "  that  the  three  successive 
conquests  of  England  by  the  Anglo-Saxons,  Danes,  and  Normans, 
were  in  fact  conquests  made  by  the  same  people,  and,  in  the  last 
two  instances,  over  those  who  were  not  only  descended  from  the 
same  stock,  but  who  had  immigrated  from  the  very  same  localities. 
The  Jutes,  Angles,  and  Saxons,  were  for  the  most  part  Danes  or 
of  Danish  origin.  Their  invasion  of  England  commenced  by 
plunder  and  ended  by  conquest.  These  were  overthrown  by  the 
Danes  and  Norwegians  in  precisely  the  same  manner. 

"  In  the  year  875,  Roll  or  Rollo,  having  been  expelled  from 
Norway  by  Harold  Harfager,  adopted  the  profession  of  a  sea- 
kong,  and  in  the  short  space  of  sixteen  years  became  Duke  of 
Normandy  and  son-in-law  of  the  French  king,  after  having  pre- 
viously repudiated  his  wife.  The  sixth  duke  in  succession  from 
Rollo  was  William,  illegitimate  son  of  Robert  le  Diahle  and 
Herleva,  a  concubine.  By  the  battle  of  Hastings,  which  William 
gained  in  1066,  over  King  Harold,  who  was  slain  in  it,  the  former 
became  sovereign  of  England,  and  instead  of  the  appellation  of 
1  the  Bastard,'  by  which  he  had  been  hitherto  known,  he  now 
obtained  the  surname  of i  the  Conqueror.' 


116 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


"  Thus  both  the  Saxon  and  Danish  invaders  were  subdued  by 
their  Norman  brethren." 

All  the  Scandinavian  invasions  of  England  were,  therefore, 
successful,  each  in  turn  giving  way  before  a  new  one  ;  and  it  is 
not  a  little  remarkable  that  the  very  year  in  which  Brian  Boru 
dealt  a  death-blow  to  the  Danes  at  Clontarf  witnessed  the  com- 
plete subjection  of  England  by  Canute. 

The  success  of  the  Northmen  in  France  is  still  more  worthy 
of  attention.  Their  invasions  began  soon  after  the  death  of 
Charlemagne.  It  is  said  that,  before  his  demise,  hearing  of  the 
appearance  of  one  of  their  fleets  not  far  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Rhine,  he  shed  tears,  and  foretold  the  innumerable  evils  it  por- 
tended. He  saw,  no  doubt,  that  the  long  and  oft-repeated  efforts 
of  his  life  to  subdue  and  convert  the  northern  Saxons  would  fail 
to  obtain  for  his  successors  the  peace  he  had  hoped  to  win  by  his 
sword,  and,  knowing  from  the  Saxons  themselves  the  relentless 
ferocity,  audacity,  and  frightful  cruelty,  inoculated  in  their  Scan- 
dinavian blood,  he  could  not  but  expect  for  his  empire  the  fierce 
attacks  which  were  preparing  in  the  arctic  seas.  All  his  life  had 
he  been  a  conqueror,  and  under  his  sway  the  Franks,  whom  he 
had  ever  led  to  victory,  acquired  a  name  through  Europe  for 
military  glory  which,  he  dreaded,  would  no  longer  remain  untar- 
nished. His  forebodings,  however,  could  not  be  shared  by  any 
of  those  who  surrounded  him  in  his  old  age ;  his  eagle  eye  alone 
discerned  the  coming  misfortunes. 

Seven  times  had  the  great  emperor  subdued  the  Saxons. 
He  had  crushed  them  effectually,  since  he  could  not  otherwise 
prevent  them  from  disturbing  his  empire.  The  Franks,  who 
formed  his  army,  were  therefore  the  real  conquerors  of  Western 
Europe.  Starting  from  the  banks  of  the  Rhine,  they  subjugated 
the  north  as  far  as  the  Baltic  Sea ;  they  conquered  Italy  as  far 
south  as  Beneventum,  by  their  victories  over  the  Lombards ; 
by  the  subjugation  of  Aquitaine,  they  took  possession  of  the  whole 
of  France ;  the  only  check  they  had  ever  received  was  in  the 
valley  of  Roncevaux,  whence  a  part  of  one  of  their  armies  was 
compelled  to  retreat,  without,  however,  losing  Catalonia,  which 
they  had  won. 

Nevertheless,  we  see  them  a  few  years  after  powerless  and 
stricken  with  terror  at  the  very  name  of  the  Northmen,  as  soon 
as  Hastings  and  Rollo  appeared.  Those  sea-rovers  established 
themselves  straightway  in  the  very  centre  of  the  Frankish 
dominion ;  for  it  was  at  the  mouth  of  the  Rhine,  in  the  island  of 
"Walcheren,  that  they  formed  their  first  camp,  h  rom  Walcheren 
they  swept  both  banks  of  the  Rhine,  and,  after  enriching  them- 
selves with  the  spoils  of  monasteries,  cathedrals,  and  palaces,  they 
thought  of  other  countries.    Then  began  the  long  series  of 


THE  IRISH  AKD  TEE  DANES. 


117 


spoliations  which  desolated  the  whole  of  France  along  the  Seine, 
the  Loire,  and  the  Garonne. 

Opposition  they  scarcely  encountered.  Paris  alone,  of  all  the 
great  cities  of  France,  sustained  a  long  siege,  and  finally  bought 
them  off  by  tribute.  The  military  power  of  the  nation  was  an- 
nihilated all  at  once,  and  of  all  French  history  this  period  is  un- 
doubtedly the  most  humiliating  to  a  native  of  the  soil. 

And  now  let  us  see  how  the  Irish  met  the  same  piratical 
invasions. 

We  are  already  acquainted  with  the  chief  defect  of  their  po- 
litical system,  namely,  its  want  of  centralization.  The  Ard-Righ 
was  in  fact  but  a  nominal  ruler,  except  in  the  small  province 
which  acknowledged  his  chieftainship  only.  Throughout  the  rest 
of  Ireland  the  provincial  kings  were  independent  save  in  name. 
Not  only  were  they  often  reluctant  to  obey  the  Ard-Righ,  but 
they  were  not  seldom  at  open  war  with  him.  Nor  are  we  to 
suppose  that,  at  least  in  the  case  of  a  serious  attack  from  without, 
their  patriotism  overcame  their  private  differences,  and  made 
them  combine  together  to  show  a  common  front  against  a  common 
foe.  In  a  patriarchal  state  of  government  there  is  scarcely  any 
other  form  of  patriotism  than  that  of  the  particular  sept  to  which 
each  individual  belongs.  All  the  ideas,  customs,  prejudices,  are 
opposed  to  united  action. 

Yet  an  invasion  so  formidable  as  that  of  the  Scandinavian 
tribes  showed  itself  everywhere  to  be.  would  have  required  all 
the  energies  and  resources  of  the  whole  country  united  under  one 
powerful  chief,  particularly  when  it  did  not  consist  of  one  single 
fearful  irruption. 

During  two  centuries  large  fleets  of  dingy,  hide-bound  barks 
discharged  on  the  shores  of  Erin  their  successive  cargoes  of 
human  fiends,  bent  on  rapine  and  carnage,  and  altogether  proof 
against  fear  of  even  the  most  horrible  death,  since  such  death  was 
to  them  the  entry  to  the  eternal  realms  of  their  Walhalla. 

But,  at  the  period  of  which  we  speak,  the  terrible  evil  of  a 
want  of  centralization  was  greatly  aggravated  by  a  change  occur- 
ring in  the  line  which  held  the  supreme  power  in  the  island. 

The  vigorous  rule  of  a  long  succession  of  princes  belonging 
to  the  northern  Hy-Niall  line  gave  way  to  the  ascendency  of  the 
southern  branch  of  this  great  family  ;  and  the  much  more  limited 
patrimony  and  alliances  of  this  new  quasi-dynasty  rendered  its 
personal  power  very  inferior  to  that  of  the  northern  branch,  and 
consequently  lessened  the  influence  possessed  by  the  ruling 
family  in  past  times.  In  Ireland  the  connections,  more  or  less 
numerous,  by  blood  relationship  with  the  great  families,  always 
exercised  a  powerful  influence  over  the  body  of  the  nation  in 
rendering  it  docile  and  amenable  to  the  will  of  the  Ard-Righ. 

Mullingar,  in  West  Heath,  was  the  abode  of  the  southern  Hy- 


118 


TTIE  IRISH  AND  TIIE  DANES. 


Nialls,  and  Malachy  of  the  Shannon,  the  first  Ard-Righ  of  this 
line,  succeeded  King  Niall  of  Callan  in  8±3.  The  Danes  were 
already  in  the  country  and  had  committed  depredations.  Their 
first  descent  is  mentioned  by  the  Four  Masters  as  taking  place  at 
Rathlin  on  the  coast  of  Antrim  in  the  year  790. 

But  the  country  was  soon  aroused;  and  religious  feelings, 
always  uppermost  in  the  Irish  heart,  supplied  the  deficiencies  of 
the  constitution  <rf  the  state  and  the  particularly  unfavorable  cir- 
cumstances of  the  period.  The  Danes,  as  usual,  first  attacked 
the  monasteries  and  churches,  and  this  alone  was  enough  to  kin- 
dle in  the  breasts  of  the  people  the  spirit  of  resistance  and  retali- 
ation. Iona  was  laid  waste  in  797,  and  again  in  801  and  805. 
"  To  save  from  the  rapacity  of  the  Danes,"  says  Montalembert  in 
his  Monks  of  the  West,  "  a  treasure  which  no  pious  liberality 
could  replace,  the  body  of  S.  Columba  was  carried  to  Ireland. 
And  it  is  the  unvarying  tradition  of  Irish  annals,  that  it  was 
deposited  finally  at  Down,  in  an  episcopal  monastery,  not  far 
from  the  eastern  shore  of  the  island,  between  the  great  monastery 
of  Bangor  in  the  North,  and  Dublin  the  future  capital  of  Ireland, 
in  the  South." 

Ireland  was  first  assailed  by  the  Danes  on  the  north  immedi- 
ately after  they  had  gained  possession  of  the  Hebrides  ;  but  the 
coasts  of  Germany,  Belgium,  and  France  had  witnessed  their 
attacks  long  before.  Religion  was  the  first  to  suffer  ;  and  as  the 
Island  of  Saints  was  at  the  time  of  their  descent  covered  with 
churches  and  monasteries,  the  Scandinavian  barbarians  found  in 
these  a  rich  harvest  which  induced  them  to  return  again  and 
again.  The  first  expedition  consisted  of  only  a  few  boats  and  a 
small  body  of  men.  Nevertheless,  as  their  irruptions  were  unex- 
pected, and  the  people  were  unprepared  for  resistance,  many 
holy  edifices  suffered  from  these  attacks,  and  a  great  number  of 
priests  and  monks  were  murdered. 

We  read  that  Armagh  with  its  cathedral  and  monasteries  was 
plundered  four  times  in  one  month,  and  in  Bangor  nine  hundred 
monks  were  slaughtered  in  a  single  day.  The  majority  of  the 
inmates  of  those  houses  fled  with  their  books  and  the  relics  of 
their  saints  at  the  approach  of  the  invaders,  but,  returning  to  their 
desecrated  homes  after  the  departure  of  the  pirates,  gave  cause 
for  those  successive  plunderings. 

But  the  Irish  did  not  always  fly  in  dismay,  as  was  the  case  in 
England  and  France.  A  force  was  generally  mustered  in  the 
neighborhood  to  meet  and  repel  the  attack,  and  in  numerous 
instances  the  marauders  were  driven  back  with  slaughter  to  their 
ships. 

For  the  clans  rallied  to  the  defence  of  the  Church.  Though 
the  chieftains  and  their  clansmen  might  seem  to  have  failed 
fully  to  imbibe  the  spirit  of  religion,  though  in  their  insane  feuds 


THE  IRISH  AKD  THE  DANES. 


119 


they  often  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  remonstrances  and  reproaches 
of  the  bishops  and  monks,  nevertheless  Christianity  reigned 
supreme  in  their  inmost  hearts.  And  when  they  beheld  pagans 
landed  on  their  shores,  to  insult  their  faith  and  destroy  the  mon- 
uments of  their  religion,  to  shed  the  blood  of  holy  men,  of  conse- 
crated virgins,  and  of  innocent  children,  they  turned  that  bravery 
which  they  had  so  often  used  against  themselves  and  for  the 
satisfaction  of  worthless  contentions  into  a  new  and  a  more 
fitting  channel — the  defence  of  their  altars  and  the  punishment 
of  sacrilegious  outrage. 

The  clan  system  was  the  very  best  adapted  for  this  kind  of 
warfare,  so  long  as  no  large  fleets  came,  and  the  pirates  were  too 
few  in  number  and  too  sagacious  in  mind  to  think  of  venturing 
far  inland.  When  but  a  small  number  of  boats  arrived,  the  inva- 
ders found  in  the  neighborhood  a  clan  ready  to  receive  them. 
The  clansmen  speedily  assembled,  and,  falling  on  the  plundering 
crews,  showed  them  how  different  were  the  free  men  of  a  Celtic 
coast,  who  were  inspired  by  a  genuine  love  for  their  faith,  from 
the  degenerate  sons  of  the  Gallo-Romans. 

So  the  annals  of  the  countrv  tell  us  that  the  "  foreioniers n 
were  destroyed  in  812  by  the  men  of  Umhall  in  Mayo ;  by  Cor- 
rach,  lord  of  Killarney,  in  the  same  year ;  by  the  men  of  Ulidia 
and  by  Carbry  with  the  men  of  Hy-Kinsella  in  827 ;  by  the  clans- 
men of  Hy-Figeinte,  near  Limerick,  in  83-1,  and  many  more. 

But  the  hydra  had  a  thousand  heads,  and  new  expeditions 
were  continually  arriving.  In  the  words  of  Mr.  Wors  aae,  a 
Danish  writer  of  this  century : 

"  From  time  immemorial  Ireland  was  celebrated  in  the  Scan- 
dinavian north,  for  its  charming  situation,  its  mild  climate,  and 
its  fertility  and  beauty.  The  Kongspell — mirror  of  Kings — which 
was  compiled  in  Norway  about  the  year  1200,  says  that  Ireland 
is  almost  the  best  of  the  lands  we  are  acquainted  with  although 
no  vines  grow  there.  The  Scandinavian  Vikings  and  emigrants, 
who  often  contented  themselves  with  such  poor  countries  as 
Greenland  and  the  islands  in  the  north  Atlantic,  must,  therefore, 
have  especially  turned  their  attention  to  the  '  Emerald  Isle,' 
particularly  as  it  bordered  closely  upon  their  colonies  in  England 
and  Scotland.  But  to  make  conquests  in  Ireland,  and  to  acquire 
by  the  sword  alone  permanent  settlements  there,  was  no  easy 
task.  .  .  .  When  we  consider  that  neither  the  Romans  nor  the 
Anglo-Saxons  ever  obtained  a  footing  in  that  country,  although 
they  had  conquered  England,  the  adjacent  isle,  and  when  we 
further  reflect  upon  the  immense  power  exerted  by  the  English 
in  later  times  in  order  to  subdue  the  Celtic  population  of  the 
island,  we  cannot  help  being  surprised  at  the  very  considerable 
Scandinavian  settlements  which,  as  early  as  the  ninth  century, 
were  formed  in  that  country." 


120 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


These  are  the  words  of  a  Dane.  "We  shall  see  what  the  "  very- 
considerable  Scandinavian  settlements  "  amounted  to ;  the  quota- 
tion is  worthy  of  note,  as  presenting  in  a  few  words  the  motives 
of  those  who  at  any  time  invaded  Ireland,  and  the  stubborn 
resistance  which  they  met. 

The  Irish  were  not  dismayed  by  the  constant  arrivals  of  those 
northern  hordes.  They  met  them  one  after  another  without 
considering  their  complexity  and  connection.  They  only  saw  a 
troop  of  fierce  barbarians  landed  on  their  shores,  chiefly  intent 
upon  plundering  and  burning  the  churches  and  holy  houses 
which  they  had  erected  ;  they  saw  their  island,  hitherto  protected 
by  the  ocean  from  foreign  attack,  and  resting  in  the  enjoyment 
of  a  constant  round  of  Christian  festivals  and  joyful  feasts,  now 
desecrated  by  the  presence  and  the  fury  of  ferocious  pagans  ;  they 
armed  for  the  defence  of  all  that  is  dear  to  man ;  and  though, 
perhaps,  at  first  beaten  and  driven  back,  they  mustered  in  force  at 
a  distance  to  fall  on  the  victors  with  a  swoop  of  noble  birds  who 
fly  to  the  defence  of  their  young. 

This  kind  of  contest  continued  for  two  hundred  years,  with 
the  exception  of  the  periods  of  larger  invasions,  when  a  single 
clan  no  longer  sufficed  to  avenge  the  cause  of  God  and  humanity, 
and  the  Ard-Kigh  was  compelled  to  throw  himself  on  the  scene 
at  the  head  of  the  whole  collective  force  of  the  nation  in  order  to 
oppose  the  vast  fleets  and  large  armies  of  the  Danes. 

The  country  suffered  undoubtedly ;  the  cattle  were  slain  ;  the 
fields  devastated ;  the  churches  and  houses  burned ;  the  poets 
silenced  or  woke  their  song  only  to  notes  of  woe  ;  the  harpers 
taught  the  national  instrument  the  music  of  sadness ;  the  numer- 
ous schools  were  scattered,  though  never  destroyed ;  as  centuries 
later,  under  the  Saxon,  the  people  took  their  books  or  writing 
materials  to  their  miserable  cottages  or  hid  them  in  the  mountain 
fastnesses,  and  thus,  for  the  first  time  in  their  history,  the  hedge 
school  succeeded  those  of  the  large  monasteries.  So  the  nation 
continued  to  live  on,  the  energetic  fire  which  burned  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people  could  not  be  quenched.  They  rose  and  rose 
again,  and  often  took  a  noble  revenge,  never  disheartened  by  the 
most  utter  disaster 

On  three  different  occasions  this  bloody  strife  assumed  a  yet 
more  serious  and  dangerous  aspect.  It  was  not  a  few  boats  only 
which  came  to  the  shores  of  the  devoted  island ;  but  the  main 
power  of  Scandinavia  seemed  to  combine  in  order  to  crush  all 
opposition  at  a  single  blow. 

When  the  knowledge  of  the  richness,  fertility,  and  beauty  ot 
the  island  had  fully  spread  throughout  Denmark  and  Norway,  a 
large  fleet  gathered  in  the  harbors  of  the  Baltic  and  put  to  sea. 
The  famous  Turgesius  or  Turgeis — Thorgyl  in  the  Norse — was 
the  leader.    The  Edda  and  Sagas  of  Norway  and  Denmark  have 


THE  IRISH  AND  TOE  DANES. 


121 


Deen  examined  with  a  view  to  elucidate  this  passage  in  Irish 
history,  but  thus  tar  fruitlessly.  It  is  known,  however,  that 
many  Sagas  have  been  lost  which  might  have  contained  an 
account  of  it.  The  Irish  annals  are  too  unanimous  on  the  subject 
to  leave  any  possibility  of  doubt  with  regard  to  it ;  and,  whatever 
may  be  the  opinion  of  learned  men  on  the  early  events  in  the 
history  of  Erin,  the  story  of  the  eighth,  ninth,  and  tenth  centuries 
rests  entirely  on  historical  ground,  as  surely  as  if  the  facts  had 
happened  a  few  hundred  years  ago. 

Turgesius  landed  with  his  fleet  on  the  northeast  coast  of  the 
island,  and  straightway  the  scattered  bands  of  Scandinavians 
already  in  the  country  acknowledged  his  leadership  and  flocked 
to  his  standard.  McGeoghegan  says  that  "  he  assumed  in  his 
own  hands  the  sovereignty  of  all  the  foreigners  that  were  then  in 
Ireland." 

From  the  north  he  marched  southward ;  and,  passing  Armagh 
on  his  route,  attacked  and  took  it,  and  plundered  its  shrines, 
monasteries,  and  schools.  There  were  then  within  its  walls  seven 
thousand  students,  according  to  an  ancient  roll  which  Keating 
says  has  been  discovered  at  Oxford.  *  These  were  slaughtered  or 
dispersed,  and  the  same  fate  attended  the  nine  hundred  monks 
residing  in  its  monasteries. 

Foraanan,  the  primate,  fled ;  and  the  pagan  sea-kong,  enter- 
ing the  cathedral,  seated  himself  on  the  primatial  throne,  and 
had  himself  proclaimed  archbishop. — (O' Curry.)  He  had  shortly 
before  devastated  Clonmacnoise  and  made  his  wife  supreme  head 
of  that  great  ecclesiastical  centre,  celebrated  for  its  many  con- 
vents of  holy  women.  The  tendency  to  add  insult  to  outrage, 
when  the  object  of  the  outrage  is  the  religion  of  Christ,  is  old  in 
the  blood  of  the  northern  barbarians ;  and  Turgesius  was  merely 
setting  the  example,  in  his  own  rude  and  honest  fashion,  to  the 
more  polished  but  no  less  ridiculous  assumption  of  ecclesiastical 
authority,  which  was  to  be  witnessed  in  England,  on  the  part  of 
Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth. 

The  power  of  the  invader  was  so  superior  to  whatever  forces 
the  neighboring  Irish  clans  could  muster,  that  no  opposition 
was  even  attempted  at  first  by  the  indignant  witnesses  of  those 
sacrileges.  It  is  even  said  that  at  the  very  time  when  the 
Northmen  were  pillaging  and  burning  in  the  northeast  of  the 
island,  the  men  of  Munster  were  similarly  employed  in 
Bregia ;  and  Conor,  the  reigning  monarch  of  Ireland,  instead  of 
defending  the  invaded  territories,  was  himself  hard  at  work 
plundering  Leinster  to  the  banks  of  the  river  Liffey. — (Haverty.) 
I3ut,  doubtless,  none  of  those  deluded  Irish  princes  had  yet  heard 
of  the  pagan  devastations  and  insults  to  their  religion,  and  thus 
it  was  easy  for  the  great  sea-kong  to  strengthen  and  extend  his 
power.    For  the  attainment  of  his  object  he  employed  two  pow- 


122 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


erful  agents  which  would  have  effectually  crusl  ed  Ireland  for- 
ever, if  the  springs  of  vitality  in  the  nation  had  not  been  more 
than  usually  expansive  and  strong. 

The  political  ability  of  the  Danes  began  to  show  itself  in  Ire- 
land, as  it  did  about  the  same  period  (830)  in  England,  and  later 
on  in  France.  Turgesius  saw  that,  in  order  to  subdue  the  nation, 
it  was  necessary  to  establish  military  stations  in  the  interior 
and  fortify  cities  on  the  coast,  where  he  could  receive  reinforce- 
ments from  Scandinavia.  These  plans  he  was  prompt  to  put 
into  practice. 

His  military  stations  would  have  been  too  easily  destroyed  by 
the  bravery  of  the  Irish,  strengthened  by  the  elasticity  of  their 
clan-system,  if  they  were  planted  on  land.  He,  therefore,  set 
them  in  the  interior  lakes  which  are  so  numerous  in  the  island, 
where  his  navy  could  repel  all  the  attacks  of  the  natives,  unused 
as  they  were  to  naval  conflicts.  He  stationed  a  part  of  his  fleet 
on  Lough  Lee  in  the  upper  Shannon,  another  in  Lough  Neagh, 
south  of  Antrim,  a  third  in  Lough  Lughmagh  or  Dundalk  bay. 
These  various  military  positions  were  strongholds  which  secured 
the  supremacy  of  the  Scandinavians  in  the  north  of  the  island 
for  a  long  time.  In  the  south,  Turgesius  relied  on  the  various 
cities  which  his  troops  were  successively  to  build  or  enlarge, 
namely,  Dublin,  Limerick,  Gal  way,  Cork,  Waterford,  and  Wex- 
ford. This  first  Scandinavian  ruler  could  begin  that  policy  only 
by  establishing  his  countrymen  in  Dublin,  which  they  seized 
in  836. 

Up  to  that  time  the  Irish  had  scarcely  any  city  worthy  of  the 
name.  A  patriarchal  people,  they  followed  the  mode  of  life  of 
the  old  Eastern  patriarchs,  who  abhorred  dwelling  in  large  towns. 
Until  the  invasion  of  the  Danes,  the  island  was  covered  with 
farm-houses  placed  at  some  distance  from  each  other.  Here  and 
there  large  duns  or  raths,  as  they  were  called,  formed  the  dwell- 
ings of  their  chieftains,  and  became  places  of  refuge  for  the  clans- 
men in  time  of  danger.  Churches  and  monasteries  arose  in  great 
numbers  from  the  time  of  St.  Patrick,  which  were  first  built  in 
the  woods,  but  soon  grew  into  centres  of  population,  correspond- 
ing in  many  respects  to  the  idea  of  towns  as  generally  understood. 

The  Northmen  brought  with  them  into  Ireland  the  ideas  of 
cities,  commerce,  and  municipal  life,  hitherto  unknown.  The 
introduction  of  these  supposed  a  total  change  necessary  in  the 
customs  of  the  natives,  and  stringent  regulations  to  which  the 
people  could  not  but  be  radically  opposed.  And  strange  was 
their  manner  of  introduction  by  these  northern  hordes.  Keating 
tells  us  how  Turgesius  understood  them.  They  were  far  worse 
than  the  imaginary  laws  of  the  Athenians  as  recorded  in  the 
"  Birds "  of  Aristophanes.  No  more  stringent  rules  could  be 
devised,  whether  for  municipal,  rural,  or  social  regulations ;  and, 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


123 


as  the  ^Northmen  are  known  to  have  been  of  a  systematic  mind, 
no  stronger  proof  of  this  fact  could  be  given. 

Keating  deplores  in  the  following  terms  the  fierce  tyranny  of 
the  Danish  sea-kong : 

"  The  result  of  the  heavy  oppression  of  this  thraldom  of  the 
Gaels  under  the  foreigner  was,  that  great  weariness  thereof  came 
upon  the  men  of  Ireland,  and  the  few  of  the  clergy  that  survived 
had  fled  for  safety  to  the  forests  and  wildernesses,  where  they 
lived  in  misery,  but  passed  their  time  piously  and  devoutly,  and 
now  the  same  clergy  prayed  fervently  to  God  to  deliver  them 
from  that  tyranny  of  Turgesius,  and,  moreover,  they  fasted  against 
that  tyrant,  and  they  commanded  every  layman  among  the 
faithful,  that  still  remained  obedient  to  their  voice,  to  fast  against 
him  likewise.  And  God  then  heard  their  supplications  in  as  far 
as  the  delivering  of  Turgesius  into  the  hands  of  the  Gaels." 

Thus  in  the  ninth  century  the  subsequent  events  of  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  were  foreshadowed.  The  judicious  editor 
of  Keating,  however,  justly  remarks,  that  this  description,  taken 
mainly  from  Cambrensis,  is  not  supported  in  its  entirety  by  the 
contemporaneous  annals  of  the  island;  that  the  power  of  the 
Danes  never  was  as  universal  and  oppressive  as  is  here  sup- 
posed ;  and  that  though  each  of  the  facts  mentioned  may  have 
actually  taken  place  in  some  part  of  the  country,  at  some  period 
of  the  Danish  invasion,  yet  the  whole,  as  representing  the  actual 
state  of  the  entire  island  at  the  time,  is  exaggerated  and  of  too 
sweeping  a  nature. 

It  is  clear,  nevertheless,  that  the  domination  of  the  Northmen 
could  not  have  been  completely  established  in  Ireland,  together 
with  their  notions  of  superiority  of  race,  trade  on  a  large  scale, 
and  a  consequent  agglomeration  of  men  in  large  cities,  without 
the  total  destruction  of  the  existing  social  state  of  the  Irish,  and 
consequently  something  of  the  frightful  tyranny  just  described. 

But  the  people  were  too  brave,  too  buoyant,  and  too  ardent 
in  their  nature,  to  bear  so  readily  a  yoke  so  heavy.  They  were 
too  much  attached  to  their  religion,  not  to  sacrifice  their  lives,  if 
necessary,  in  order  to  put  an  end  to  the  sacrilegious  usurpations 
of  a  pagan  king,  profaning,  by  his  audacious  assumptions,  the 
noblest,  highest,  purest,  and  most  sacred  dignities  of  holy 
Church.  A  man,  stained  with  the  blood  of  so  many  prelates  and 
priests,  seated  on  the  primatial  throne  of  the  country  in  sheer 
derision  of  their  most  profound  feelings ;  his  pagan  wife  ruling 
over  the  city  which  the  virgins  of  Bridget,  the  spouses  of  Christ, 
had  honored  and  sanctified  so  long ;  their  religion  insulted  by 
those  who  tried  to  destroy  it — how  could  such  a  state  of  things 
be  endured  by  the  whole  race,  not  yet  reduced  to  the  condition 
to  which  so  many  centuries  of  oppression  subsequently  brought 
•*t  down ! 


124 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DAXES. 


Hence  Keating  could  write  directly  after  the  passage  just 
quoted:  "When  tlie  nobles  of  Ireland  saw  that  Turgesius had 
brought  confusion  upon  their  country,  and  that  he  was  assuming 
supreme  authority  over  themselves,  and  reducing  them  to  thral- 
dom and  vassalage,  they  became  inspired  with  a  fortitude  of 
mind,  and  a  loftiness  of  spirit,  and  a  hardihood  and  firmness  of 
purpose,  that  urged  them  to  work  in  right  earnest,  and  to  toil 
zealously  in  battle  against  him  and  his  murdering  hordes." 

And  hereupon  the  faithful  historian  gives  a  long  list  of 
engagements  in  which  the  Irish  were  successful,  ending  with  the 
victory  of  Malachi  at  Glas  Linni,  where  we  know  from  the  Four 
Masters  that  Turgesius  himself  was  taken  prisoner  and  after- 
ward drowned  in  Lough  Uair  or  Owell  in  West  Meath,  by  order 
of  the  Irish  king. 

This  prince,  then  monarch  of  the  whole  island,  atoned  for  the 
apathy  and  the  want  of  patriotism  of  his  predecessors,  Conor 
and  the  Nialls.  He  was  in  truth  a  saviour  of  his  country,  and 
the  death  of  the  oppressor  was  the  signal  for  a  general  onslaught 
upon  the  "  foreigners  "  in  every  part  of  the  island. 

"  The  people  rose  simultaneously,  and  either  massacred  them 
in  their  towns,  or  defeated  them  in  the  fields,  so  that,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  strongholds,  like  Dublin,  the  whole  of  Ireland 
was  free  from  the  Northmen.  Wherever  they  could  escape,  they 
took  refuge  in  their  ships,  but  only  to  return  in  more  numerous 
swarms  than  before." — (M.  Haverty.) 

It  is  evident  that  their  deep  sense  of  religion  was  the  chief 
source  of  the  energy  which  the  Irish  then  displayed.  They  had 
not  yet  been  driven  into  a  fierce  resistance  by  being  forcibly 
deprived  of  their  lands ;  although  the  Danes,  when  they  carried 
their  vexatious  tyranny  into  all  the  details  of  private  life — not 
allowing  lords  and  ladies  of  the  Irish  race  to  wear  rich  dresses 
and  appear  in  a  manner  befitting  their  rank — when  they  went  so 
far  as  to  refuse  a  bowl  of  milk  to  an  infant,  that  a  rude  soldier 
might  quench  his  thirst  with  it — could  have  scarcely  permitted 
the  apparently  conquered  people  to  enjoy  all  the  advantages 
accruing  to  the  owner  from  the  possession  of  land.  Yet  in  none 
of  the  chronicles  of  the  time  which  we  have  seen  is  any  mention 
made  of  open  confiscation,  and  of  the  survey  and  division  of  the 
territory  among  the  greedy  followers  of  the  sea-kong.  We  do 
not  yet  witness  what  happened  shortly  after  in  Normandy  under 
Rollo,  and  what  was  to  happen  four  hundred  years  later  in  Ire- 
land. The  Scandinavians  had  not  yet  attained  that  degree  of 
civilization  which  makes  men  attach  a  paramount  importance  to 
the  possession  of  a  fixed  part  of  any  territory,  and  call,  in  surveys, 
title-deeds,  charters,  and  all  the  written  documents  necessitated 
by  a  captious  and  over-scrupulous  legislation.  The  Irish,  conse- 
quently, did  not  perceive  that  their  broad  acres  were  passing  into 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


125 


the  control  of  a  foreign  race,  and  were  being  taken  piecemeal 
from  them,  thus  bringing  them  gradually  down  to  the  condition 
of  mere  serfs  and  dependants. 

What  they  did  see,  beyond  the  possibility  of  mistake  or 
deception,  was  their  religion  outraged,  their  spiritual  rulers,  not 
merely  no  longer  at  liberty  to  practise  the  duties  of  their  sacred 
ministry,  but  hunted  down  and  slaughtered  or  driven  to  the 
mountains  and  the  woods.  They  saw  that  pagans  were  actually 
ruling  their  holy  isle,  and  changing  a  paradise  of  sanctity  into  a 
pandemonium  of  brutal  passion,  presided  over  by  a  superstitious 
and  cruel  idolatry.  For  surely,  although  the  Irish  chronicles  fail 
to  speak  of  it,  the  minstrels  and  historians  being  too  full  of  their 
own  misery  to  think  of  looking  at  the  pagan  rites  of  their  enemies 
— those  enemies  worshipped  Thor  and  Odin  and  Frigga,  and  as 
surely  did  they  detest  the  Church  which  they  were  on  a  lair  way 
to  destroy  utterly.  This  it  was  which  gave  the  Irish  the  courage 
of  despair.  For  this  cause  chiefly  did  the  whole  island  fly  to 
arms,  fall  on  their  foes  and  bring  down  on  their  heads  a  fearful 
retribution.  This  it  was,  doubtless,  which  breathed  into  the  new 
monarch  the  energy  which  he  displayed  on  the  field  of  Glas 
Linni ;  and  when  he  ordered  the  barbarian,  now  a  prisoner  in  his 
hands,  to  be  drowned,  it  was  principally  as  a  sign  that  he  detest- 
ed in  him  the  blasphemer  and  the  persecutor  of  God's  church. 

Thus  did  the  first  national  misfortunes  of  this  Celtic  people 
become  the  means  of  enkindling  in  their  hearts  a  greater  love  for 
their  religion,  and  a  greater  zeal  for  its  preservation  in  their 
midst. 

Ireland  was  again  free ;  and,  although  we  have  no  details 
concerning  the  short  period  of  prosperity  which  followed  the 
overthrow  of  the  tyranny  wTe  have  touched  upon,  we  have  small 
doubt  that  the  first  object  of  the  care  of  those  who,  under  God, 
had  worked  their  own  deliverance,  was  to  repair  the  ruins  of  the 
desecrated  sanctuaries  and  restore  to  religion  the  honor  of  which 
it  had  been  stripped. 

The  Danes  themselves  came  to  see  that  they  had  acted  rashly 
in  striving  to  deprive  the  Irish  of  a  religion  which  was  so  dear 
to  their  hearts ;  they  resolved  on  a  change  of  policy,  as  they  were 
still  bent  on  taking  possession  of  the  island,  which  Mr.  Worsaae 
has  told  us  they  considered  the  best  country  in  existence. 

They  resolved,  therefore,  to  act  with  more  prudence,  and  to 
make  use  of  trade  and  the  material  blessings  which  it  confers,  in 
order  to  entice  the  Irish  to  their  destruction,  by  allowing  the 
Northmen  to  carry  on  business  transactions  with  them  and  so 
gradually  to  dwell  among  them  again.  Father  Keating  tells  the 
story  in  his  quaint  and  graphic  style : 

"  The  plan  adopted  by  them  on  this  occasion  was  to  equip 
three  captains,  sprung  from  the  noblest  blood  of  Norway,  and  to 


126 


THE  IEISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


send  them  with  a  fleet  to  Ireland,  for  the  object  of  obtaining 
6ome  station  for  purpose  of  trade.  And  with  them  thej  accord- 
ingly embarked  many  tempting  wares,  and  many  valuable  jewels 
— with  the  design  of  presenting  them  to  the  men  of  Ireland,  in 
the  hope  of  thus  securing  their  iriendship ;  for  they  believed  that 
they  might  thus  succeed  in  surreptitiously  fixing  a  grasp  upon 
the  Irish  soil,  and  might  be  enabled  to  oppress  the  Irish  people 
again.  .  .  .  The  three  captains,  therefore,  coming  from  the 
ports  of  N orway,  landed  in  Ireland  with  their  followers,  as  if  for 
the  purpose  of  demanding  peace,  and  under  the  pretext  of  estab- 
lishing a  trade ;  and  there,  with  the  consent  of  the  Irish,  who 
were  given  to  peace,  they  took  possession  of  some  sea-board 
places,  and  built  three  cities  thereon,  to  wit :  "Waterford,  Dublin, 
and  Limerick." 

We  see,  then,  the  Scandinavians  abandoning  their  first  pro- 
ject of  conquering  the  North  to  fall  on  the  South,  and  confining 
themselves  to  a  small  number  of  fortified  sea-ports. 

The  first  result  of  this  policy  was  a  firmer  hold  than  ever  on 
Dublin,  once  already  occupied  by  them  in  836.  "  Amlaf,  or 
Olaf,  or  Olaus,  came  from  Norway  to  Ireland  in  851,  so  that  all 
the  foreign  tribes  in  the  island  submitted  to  him,  and  they  ex- 
tracted rent  from  the  Gaels." — (Four  Masters.) 

From  that  time  to  the  twelfth  century  Dublin  became  the 
chief  stronghold  of  the  Scandinavians,  and  no  fewer  than  thirty- 
five  Ostmen,  or  Danish  kings,  governed  it.  They  made  it  an 
important  emporium,  and  such  it  continued  even  after  the  Scan- 
dinavian invasion  had  ceased.  McFirbis  says  that  in  his  time — 
1650 — most  of  the  merchants  of  Dublin  were  the  descendants  of 
the  Norwegian  Irish  king,  Olaf  Kwaran  ;  and,  to  give  a  stronger 
impulse  to  commerce,  they  were  the  first  to  coin  money  in  the 
country. 

The  new  Scandinavian  policy  carried  out  by  Amlaf.  who 
tried  to  establish  in  Dublin  the  seat  of  a  kingdom  which  was  to 
extend  over  the  whole  island,  resulted  therefore  only  in  the 
establishment  of  five  or  six  petty  principalities,  wherein  the 
Northmen,  for  some  time  masters,  were  gradually  reduced  to  a 
secondary  position,  and  finally  confined  themselves  to  the  opera- 
tions of  commerce. 

Since  the  attempt  of  Turgesius  to  subvert  the  religion  of  the 
country,  they  never  showed  the  slightest  inclination  to  repeat 
it ;  hence  they  were  left  in  quiet  possession  of  the  places  which 
they  occupied  on  the  sea-board,  and  gradually  came  to  embrace 
Christianity  themselves. 

Little  is  known  of  the  circumstances  which  attended  this 
change  of  religion  on  their  part ;  and  it  is  certain  that  it  did  not 
take  place  till  late  in  the  tenth  century.  Some  pretend  that 
Christianity  was  brought  to  them  from  their  own  country,  where 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


127 


it  had  already  been  planted  by  several  missionaries  and  bishops. 
But  it  is  known  that  St.  Ancharius,  the  first  apostle  of  Den- 
mark, could  not  establish  himself  permanently  in  that  country, 
and  had  to  direct  a  few  missionaries  from  Hamburgh,  where  he 
fixed  his  see.  It  is  known,  moreover,  that  Denmark  was  only 
truly  converted  by  Canute  in  the  eleventh  century,  after  his 
conquest  of  England.  As  to  Norway,  the  first  attempt  at  its 
conversion  by  King  Haquin,  who  had  become  a  Christian  at  the 
court  of  Athelstan  in  England,  was  a  failure ;  and  although  hia 
successor,  Harold,  appeared  to  succeed  better  for  a  time,  pagan- 
ism was  again  reestablished,  and  flourished  as  late  as  995.  It 
was,  in  fact,  Olaf  the  Holy  who,  coming  from  England,  in  1017, 
with  the  priests  Sigefried,  Budolf,  and  Bernard,  succeeded  in  in- 
troducing Christianity  permanently  into  Norway,  and  he  made 
more  use  of  the  sword  than  of  the  word  in  his  mission. 

With  regard  to  the  conversion  of  the  Danes  in  Ireland,  it 
seems  that,  after  all,  it  was  the  ever-present  spectacle  of  the 
workings  of  Christianity  among,  the  Irish  which  gradually  opened 
their  eyes  and  ears.  They  came  to  love  the  country  and  the 
people  when  they  knew  them  thoroughly ;  they  respected  them 
for  their  bravery,  which  they  had  proved  a  thousand  times ;  they 
felt  attracted  toward  them  on  account  of  their  geniality  of  tem- 
perament and  their  warm  social  feelings ;  even  their  defects  of 
character  and  their  impulsive  nature  were  pleasing  to  them. 
They  soon  sought  their  company  and  relationship ;  they  began 
to  intermarry  with  them ;  and  from  this  there  was  but  a  step  to 
embracing  their  religion. 

The  Danes  of  Waterford,  Cork,  and  Limerick  were,  however, 
the  last  to  abandon  paganism,  and  they  seem  not  to  have  done 
so  until  after  Clontarf. 

It  is  very  remarkable  that,  during  all  those  conflicts  of  the 
Irish  with  the  Danes,  when  the  Northmen  strewed  the  island 
with  dead  and  ruins ;  when  they  seemed  to  be  planting  their 
domination  in  the  Orkneys,  the  Hebrides,  and  even  the  Isle  of 
Man,  on  a  firm  footing ;  when  the  seas  around  England  and  Ire- 
land swarmed  with  pirates,  and  new  expeditions  started  almost 
every  spring  from  the  numerous  harbors  of  the  Baltic — the 
Irish  colony  of  Dal  Kiada  in  Scotland,  which  was  literally  sur- 
rounded by  the  invaders,  succeeded  in  wresting  North  Britain 
from  the  Picts,  drove  them  into  the  Lowlands,  and  so  com- 
pletely rooted  them  out,  that  history  never  more  speaks  of  them, 
so  that  to  this  day  the  historical  problem  stands  unsolved — 
What  became  of  the  Picts  ? — various  as  are  the  explanations 
given  of  their  disappearance.  And,  what  is  more  remarkable 
still,  is,  that  the  Dal  Riada  colony  received  constant  help  from 
their  brothers  in  Erin,  and  the  first  of  the  dynasty  of  Scottish 
kings,  in  the  person  of  Kenneth  Mc Alpine,  was  actually  set  on 


128 


TEE  IRISH  AND  THE  DAKES. 


the  throne  of  Scotland  by  the  arms  of  the  Irish  warriors,  who, 
not  satisfied  apparently  with  their  constant  conflicts  with  the 
Danes  on  their  own  soil,  passed  over  the  Eastern  Sea  to  the 
neighboring  coast  of  Great  Britain. 

During  the  last  forty  years  of  the  tenth  century  the  Danes 
Kved  in  Ireland  as  though  they  belonged  to  the  soil.  If  they 
waged  war  against  some  provincial  king,  they  became  the  allies 
of  others.  When  clan  fought  clan,  Danes  were  often  found  on 
both  sides,  or  if  on  one  only,  they  soon  joined  the  other.  They 
had  been  brought  to  embrace  the  manners  of  the  natives,  and  to 
adopt  many  of  their  customs  and  habits.  Yet  there  always  re- 
mained a  lurking  distrust,  more  or  less  marked,  between  the 
two  races ;  and  it  was  clear  that  Ireland  could  never  be  said  to 
have  escaped  the  danger  of  subjugation  until  the  Scandinavian 
element  should  be  rendered  powerless. 

This  antipathy  on  both  sides  existed  very  early  even  in 
Church  affairs,  the  Christian  natives  being  looked  upon  with  a 
jealous  eye  by  the  Christian  Danes  ;  so  that,  toward  the  middle 
of  the  tenth  century,  the  Danes  of  Dublin  having  succeeded  in 
obtaining  a  bishop  of  their  own  nation,  they  sent  him  to  Eng- 
land to  be  consecrated  by  Lanfranc,  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, and  for  a  long  time  the  see  of  Dublin  was  placed  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  Lanfranc' s  successors. 

This  grew  into  a  serious  difficulty  for  Ireland,  as  the  capital 
of  Leinster  began  to  be  looked  upon  as  depending,  at  least 
spiritually,  on  England ;  and  later  on,  at  the  time  of  the  inva- 
sion nnder  Strongbow,  the  establishment  of  the  English  Pale 
was  considerably  facilitated  by  such  an  arrangement,  to  which 
Rome  had  consented  only  for  the  spiritual  advantage  of  her 
Scandinavian  children  in  Ireland. 

And  the  Irish  were  right  in  distrusting  every  thing  foreign 
on  the  soil ;  for,  even  after  becoming  Christians,  the  Danes 
could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  making  a  last  effort  for  the 
subjugation  of  the  country. 

Hence  arose  their  last  general  effort,  which  resulted  in  their 
final  overthrow  at  Clontarf.  It  does  not  enter  into  our  purpose 
to  give  the  story  of  that  great  event,  known  in  all  its  details  to 
the  student  of  Irish  history.  It  is  not  for  us  to  trace  the  various 
steps  by  which  Brian  Born  mounted  to  supreme  power,  and  su- 
perseded Malachi,  to  relate  the  many  partial  victories  he  had 
already  gained  over  the  Northmen,  nor  to  allude  to  his  splendid 
administration  of  the  government,  and  the  happiness  of  the  Irish 
under  his  sway. 

But  it  is  our  duty  to  point  out  the  persevering  attempts  of 
the  Scandinavian  race,  not  only  to  keep  its  footing  on  Irish  soil, 
but  to  try  anew  to  conquer  what  it  had  so  often  failed  to  con- 
quer.   For,  in  describing  their  preparations  for  this  last  attempt 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


121 


on  a  great  scale,  we  but  add  another  proof  of  that  Irish  stead- 
fastness which  we  have  already  had  so  many  occasions  to  admire. 

In  the  chronicle  of  Adhemar,  quoted  by  Lanigan  from  Labbe 
(Nova  Bill.,  MSS.>  Tom.  2,  p.  177),  it  is  said  that  "  the  North- 
men came  at  that  time  to  Ireland,  with  an  immense  fleet,  con- 
veying even  their  wives  and  children,  with  a  view  of  extirpating 
the  Irish  and  occupying  in  their  stead  that  very  wealthy  country 
in  which  there  were  twelve  cities,  with  extensive  bishoprics  and 
a  king." 

Labbe  thinks  the  Chronicle  was  written  before  the  year  1031, 
so  that  in  his  opinion  the  writer  was  a  cou  temporary  of  the  facts 
he  relates. 

The  Irish  Annals  state,  on  their  side,  that  "  the  foreigners 
were  gathered  from  all  the  west  of  Europe,  envoys  having  been 
despatched  into  Norway,  the  Orkneys,  the  Baltic  Islands,  so  that 
a  great  number  of  Yikings  came  from  all  parts  of  Scandinavia, 
with  their  families,  for  the  purpose  of  a  permanent  settlement." 

Similar  efforts  were  made  about  the  same  time  by  the  Danes 
for  the  lasting  conquest  of  England,  which  succeeded,  Sweyn 
having  been  proclaimed  king  in  1013,  and  Canute  the  Great 
becoming  its  undisputed  ruler  in  1017. 

It  is  well  known  how  the  attempt  failed  in  Erin,  an  army  of 
twenty-one  thousand  freebooters  being  completely  defeated  near 
Dublin  by  Brian  and  his  sons. 

From  that  time  the  existence  of  the  Scandinavian  race  on 
the  Irish  soil  was  a  precarious  one ;  they  were  merely  permitted 
to  occupy  the  sea-ports  for  the  purpose  of  trade,  and  soon  Irish 
chieftains  replaced  their  kings  in  Dublin,  Limerick,  "Waterford, 
and  Cork. 

The  reader  may  be  curious  to  learn,  in  conclusion,  what 
signs  the  Danes  left  of  their  long  sojourn  on  the  island.  If  we 
listen  to  mere  popular  rumor,  the  country  is  still  full  of  the 
ruins  of  buildings  occupied  by  them.  The  common  people,  in 
pointing  out  to  strangers  the  remains  of  edifices,  fortifications, 
raths,  duns,  even  round-towers  and  churches,  either  more  ancient 
or  more  recent  than  the  period  of  the  Norse  invasion,  ascribe 
them  to  the  Danes.  It  is  clear  that  two  hundred  years  of  devas- 
tations, burnings,  and  horrors,  have  left  a  deep  impression  on  the 
mind  of  the  Irish ;  and,  as  they  cannot  suppose  that  such  power- 
ful enemies  could  have  remained  so  long  in  their  midst  without 
leaving  wonderful  traces  of  their  passage,  they  often  attribute 
to  them  the  construction  of  the  very  edifices  which  they  de- 
stroyed. The  general  accuracy  of  their  traditions  seems  here  at 
fault.  For  there  is  no  nation  on  earth  so  exact  as  the  Irish  in 
keeping  the  true  remembrance  of  facts  of  their  past  history. 
Not  long  ago  all  Irish  peasants  were  perfectly  acquainted  with 
the  whole  history  of  their  neighborhood ;  they  could  tell  what 


130 


THE  IRISH  AKD  THE  DANES. 


clans  had  succeeded  each  other,  the  exact  spots  where  such  a 
party  had  been  overthrown  and  such  another  victorious  ;  every 
village  had  its  sure  traditions  printed  on  the  minds  of  its  in- 
habitants, and,  by  consulting  the  annals  of  the  nation,  the  coin- 
cidence was  often  remarkable.  How  is  it,  therefore,  that  they 
were  so  universally  at  fault  with  respect  to  the  Danes  ? 

A  partial  explanation  has  been  given  which  is  in  itself  a 
proof  of  the  tenacity  of  Irish  memory.  It  is  known  that  the 
Tuatha  de  Danaan  were  not  only  skilful  in  medicine,  in  the 
working  of  metals  and  in  magic,  but  many  buildings  are  gener- 
ally attributed  to  them  by  the  best  antiquarians  ;  among  others, 
the  great  mound  of  New  Grange,  on  the  banks  of  the  Boyne, 
which  is  still  in  perfect  preservation,  although  opened  and  pil- 
laged by  the  Danes — a  work  reminding  the  beholder  of  some 
Egyptian  monument.  The  coincidence  of  the  name  of  the 
Tuatha  de  Danaan  with  that  of  the  Danes  may  have  induced 
many  of  the  illiterate  Irish  to  adopt  the  universal  error  into 
which  they  fell  long  ago,  of  attributing  most  of  the  ancient 
monuments  of  their  country  to  the  Danes. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  ruins  of  a  few  unimportant  castles  and 
churches  are  all  the  landmarks  that  remain  of  the  Danish  domi- 
nation in  Ireland  ;  and  even  these  must  have  been  the  product 
of  the  latter  part  of  it. 

But  a  more  curious  proof  of  the  extirpation  of  every  thing 
Danish  in  the  island  is  afforded  by  Mr.  Worsaae,  whose  object 
in  writing  his  account  of  the  Danes  and  Norwegians  in  England, 
Scotland,  and  Ireland,  was  to  glorify  his  own  country,  Denmark. 

He  made  a  special  study  of  the  names  of  places  and  things, 
which  can  be  traced  to  the  Scandinavians  respectively  in  the 
three  great  divisions  of  the  British  Isles  ;  and  certainly  the  lan- 
guage of  a  conquering  people  always  shows  itself  in  many 
words  of  the  conquered  country,  where  the  subjugation  has  been 
of  sufficient  duration. 

In  England,  chiefly  in  the  northern  half  of  the  kingdom,  a 
very  great  number  of  Danish  names  appear  and  are  still  pre- 
served in  the  geography  of  the  country.  In  Mr.  Worsaae' s 
book  there  is  a  tabular  view  of  1,373  Danish  and  Norwegian 
names  of  places  in  England,  and  also  a  list  of  100  Danish  words, 
selected  from  the  vulgar  tongue,  still  in  use  among  the  people 
who  dwell  north  of  Watling  Street. 

In  Scotland,  likewise — in  the  Highlands  and  even  in  the 
Lowlands — a  considerable  number  of  names,  or  at  least  of  ter- 
minations, are  still  to  be  met  in  the  geography  of  the  country. 

Three  or  four  names  of  places  around  Dublin,  and  the  ter- 
minations of  the  names  of  the  cities  of  Waterford,  Wexford, 
Longford,  and  a  few  others,  are  all  that  Mr.  Worsaae  could  find 
in  Ireland.    So  that  the  language  of  the  Irish,  not  to  speak  of 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


131 


government  and  laws,  remained  proof  against  the  long  and 
vering  efforts  made  by  a  great  and  warlike  Northern  race 
vade  the  country,  and  substitute  its  social  life  for  that  of 
atives. 

a  3  a  whole,  the  Scandinavian  irruptions  were  a  complete 
failure.  They  did  not  succeed  in  impressing  their  own  national- 
ity or  individuality  on  any  thing  in  the  island,  as  they  did  in 
England,  Holland,  and  the  north  of  France.  The  few  drops  of 
blood  which  they  left  in  the  country  have  been  long  ago  absorbed 
in  the  healthful  current  of  the  pure  Celtic  stream  ;  even  the  lan- 
guage of  the  people  was  not  affected  by  them. 

As  for  the  social  character  of  the  nation,  it  was  not  touched 
by  this  fearful  aggression.  The  customs  of  Scandinavia  with 
respect  to  government,  society,  domestic  affairs,  could  not  influ- 
ence the  Irish ;  they  refused  to  admit  the  systematic  thraldom 
which  the  sternness  of  the  Northmen  would  engraft  upon  their 
character,  and  preserved  their  free  manners  in  spite  of  all  ad- 
verse attempts.  In  this  country,  Turgesius,  Amlaf,  Sitrick,  and 
their  compeers,  failed  as  signally  as  other  Scandinavian  chief- 
tains succeeded  in  Britain  and  Normandy. 

The  municipal  system,  which  has  won  so  much  praise,  was 
scornfully  abandoned  by  the  Irish  to  the  Danes  of  the  sea-port 
towns,  and  they  continued  the  agricultural  life  adapted  to  their 
tastes.  Towns  and  cities  were  not  built  in  the  interior  till  much 
later  by  the  English. 

The  clan  territories  continued  to  be  governed  as  before.  The 
<c  Book  of  Hights  "  extended  its  enactments  even  to  the  Danish 
Pale ;  and  the  Danes  tried  to  convert  it  to  their  own  advantage 
by  introducing  into  it  false  chapters.  How  the  poem  of  the 
Gaels  of  Ath  Cliath  first  found  a  place  in  the  "  Book  of  Eights  " 
is  still  unknown  to  the  best  Irish  antiquarians.  John  O'Dono- 
van  concludes  from  a  verse  in  it  that  it  was  composed  in  the 
tenth  century,  after  the  conversion  of  the  Danes  of  Dublin  to 
Christianity.  It  proves  certainly  that  the  Scandinavians  in  Ire- 
land, like  the  English  of  the  Pale  later  on,  had  become  attached 
to  Erin  and  Erin's  customs — had,  in  fact,  become  Irishmen,  to 
all  intents  and  purposes.  Not  succeeding  in  making  Northmen 
of  the  Irish,  they  succumbed  to  the  gentle  influence  of  Irish 
manners  and  religion. 

As  for  the  commercial  spirit,  the  Irish  could  not  be  caught 
by  it,  even  when  confronted  by  the  spectacle  of  the  wealth  it 
conferred  on  the  "foreigners."  It  is  stated  openly  in  the  annals 
of  the  race  that  their  greatest  kings,  both  Malachi  and  Brian 
Boru,  did  not  utterly  expel  the  Danes  from  the  country,  in  order 
that  they  might  profit  by  the  Scandinavian  traders,  and  receive 
through  them  the  wines,  silks,  and  other  commodities,  which  the 
latter  imported  from  the  continent  of  Europe. 


132 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  DANES. 


The  same  is  true  of  the  sea-faring  life.  The  Irish  could  never 
be  induced  adopt  it  as  a  profession,  whatever  may  have  been 
their  fondness  for  short  voyages  in  their  curraghs. 

The  only  Daneful  effects  which  the  Norse  invasion  exercised 
on  the  Irish  were :  1.  The  interruption  of  studies  on  the  large, 
even  universal,  scale  on  which  they  had  previously  been  con- 
ducted; 2.  The  breaking  up  of  the  former  constitution  of  the 
monarchy,  by  compelling  the  several  clans  which  were  attacked 
by  the  "  foreigners "  to  act  independently  of  the  Ard-Righ,  so 
that  from  that  time  irresponsible  power  was  divided  among  a 
much  greater  number  of  chieftains. 

But  these  unfortunate  effects  of  the  Norse  irruptions  affected 
in  no  wise  the  Irish  character,  language,  or  institutions,  which, 
in  fact,  finally  triumphed  over  the  character,  language,  and  in- 
stitutions of  the  pirates  established  among  them  for  upward  of 
two  centuries. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THE  IRISH  FREE  CLANS  AND  ANGLO-NORMAN  FEUDALISM. 

The  Danes  were  subdued,  and  the  Irish  at  liberty  to  go  on 
weaving  the  threads  of  their  history — though,  in  consequence  of 
the  local  wars,  they  had  lost  the  concentrating  power  of  the 
Ard-Righ — when  treachery  in  their  own  ranks  opened  up  the 
way  for  a  far  more  serious  attack  from  another  branch  of  the 
great  Scandinavian  family — the  Anglo-Norman. 

The  manners  of  the  people  had  been  left  unchanged;  the 
clan  system  had  not  been  altered  in  the  least ;  it  had  stood  the 
test  of  previous  revolutions ;  now  it  was  to  be  confronted  by  a 
new  system  which  had  just  conquered  Europe,  and  spread  itself 
round  about  the  apparently  doomed  island.  Of  all  places  it  had 
taken  deep  root  in  England,  where  it  was  destined  to  survive  its 
destruction  elsewhere  in  the  convulsions  of  our  modern  history. . 
That  system,  then  in  full  vigor,  was  feudalism. 

In  order  rightly  to  understand  and  form  a  correct  judgment 
on  the  question,  and  its  mighty  issues,  we  must  state  briefly  what 
the  chief  characteristics  of  feudalism  were  in  those  countries 
where  it  flourished. 

The.,  feudal  sysjbem  proceeded  on  the  principle  that  landed 
property  was~~all  derived  from  the  king,  as  the  captain  of  a  con- 
quering army  ;"  that  it  had  been  distributed  by  him  among  his 
followers  on  certain  conditions,  and  that  it  was  liable  to  be  for- 
feited if  those  conditions  were  not  fulfilled. 

The  feudal  system,  moreover,  politically  considered,  supposed 
the  principle  that  ^ILcivil  and  political  rights  were  derived  from 
jhe  possession  of  land  ;  That  those  who^possessed  no  land  could  pos- 
sess neither  civil  nor  political  rights —were,  in  fact,  not  men,  but 
"villeins': —  

Consequently  ,Jt  j^ducedjiatiqns_to  a  small  number  of  land- 
owners, enjoying  all  jhe^privileges  oi^citizenship;  the  masses, 
tteprtved  of  all  rights,  having  no  share  in  the  government,  no 
opportunity  of  rising  in  the  social  scale,  were  forever  condemned 
to  villeinage  or  serfdom. 


134 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


Feudalism,  in  our  opinion,  came  first  from  Scandinavia.  The 
majority  of  writers  derive  it  from  Germany.  The  question  of 
its  origin  is  too  extensive  to  be  included  within  our  present  lim- 
its, and  indeed  is  unnecessary,  as  we  deal  principally  with  the  fact 
and  not  with  its  history. 

When  the  sea-rover  had  conquered  the  boat  of  an  enemy,  or 
destroyed  a  village,  he  distributed  the  spoils  among  his  crew. 
Every  thing  was  handed  over  to  his  followers  in  the  form  of  a  gift, 
and  in  return  these  latter  were  bound  to  serve  him  with  the 
greatest  ardor  and  devotedness.  In  course  of  time  the  idea 
of  settling  down  on  some  territory  which  they  had  devastated 
and  depopulated,  presented  itself  to  the  minds  ot  the  rovers.  The 
sea-kong  did  by  the  land  what  he  had  been  accustomed  to  do  by 
the  plunder  :  he  parcelled  it  out  among  his  faithful  followers — 
fideles — giving  to  each  his  share  of  the  territory.  This  was 
called/^A  by  the  Anglo-Saxons,  who  were  the  first  to  carry  out 
the  system  on  British  soil,  as  Dr.  Lingard  shows.  Thus  the  word 
fief  was  coined,  which  in  due  time  took  its  place  in  all  the  lan- 
guages of  Europe. 

The  giver  was  considered  the  absolute  owner  of  whatever  he 
gave,  as  is  the  commander  of  a  vessel  at  sea.  It  was  a  beneficium 
conferred  by  him,  to  which  certain  indispensable  conditions  were 
attached.  Military  duty  was  the  first,  but  not  the  only  one  of 
these.  Writers  on  feudalism  mention  a  great  number,  the  non- 
fulfilment  of  which  incurred  what  was  called  forfeiture. 

In  countries  where  the  pirates  succeeded  in  establishing  them- 
selves, all  the  native  population  was  either  destroyed  by  them, 
as  Dudo  tells  us  was  the  case  in  Normandy,  or,  as  more  frequent- 
ly happened,  the  sword  being  unable  to  carry  destruction  so  far, 
the  inhabitants  who  survived  were  reduced  to  serfdom,  and  com- 
pelled to  till  the  soil  for  the  conquerors ;  they  were  thenceforth 
called  villeins  or  aseripti  glebce.  It  is  clear  that  such  only  as  pos- 
sessed land  could  claim  civil  and  political  rights  in  the  new  states 
thus  called  into  existence.  Hence  the  owning  of  land  under 
feudal  tenure  was  the  great  and  only  essential  characteristic  of 
mediaeval  feudalism. 

This  system,  which  was  first  introduced  into  Britain  by  the 
Anglo-Saxons,  was  brought  to  a  fixed  and  permanent  state  by 
the  Normans — followers  of  William  the  Conqueror ;  and,  when 
the  time  came  for  treachery  to  summon  the  Norman  knights  to 
Irish  soil,  the  devoted  island  found  herself  face  to  face  with  an 
iron  system  which  at  that  period  crushed  and  weighed  down  all 
Europe. 

The  Normans  had  now  been  settled  in  England  for  a  hun- 
dred  years ;  all  the  castles  in  the  country  were  occupied  by  Nor- 
man lords  ;  all  bishoprics  filled  by  Norman  bishops ;  all  monas- 
teries ruled  bv  Norman  abbots.    At  the  head  of  the  state  stood 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


135 


the  king,  at  that  time  Henry  II.  Here,  more  than  in  any  other 
country  in  Europe,  was  the  king  the  key-stone  to  the  feudal 
masonry.  Not  an  inch  of  ground  in  England  was  owned  save 
under  his  authority,  as  enjoying  the  swpremum  dominium.  All 
the  land  had  been  granted  by  his  predecessors  as  fiefs,  with  the 
right  of  reversion  to  the  crown  by  forfeiture  in  case  of  the  viola- 
tion of  feudal  obligations.  Here  was  no  allodial  property,  no  cen- 
sitwe  hereditary  domain,  as  in  the  rest  of,  otherwise,  feudal  Eu- 
rope. All  English  lawyers  were  unanimous  in  the  doctrine 
that  the  king  alone  was  the  true  master  of  the  territory  ;  that  ten 
ure  under  him  carried  with  it  all  the  conditions  of  feudal  tenure, 
and  that  any  deed  or  grant  proceeding  from  his  authority  ought 
to  be  so  understood. 

The  south-western  portion  of  Wales  was  occupied  by  Nor- 
man lords,  Flemings  for  the  most  part.  Two  of  these,  Robert 
Fitzstephens  and  Maurice  Fitzgerald,  sailed  to  the  aid  of  the  Irish 
King  of  Leinster.  They  were  the  first  to  land,  arriving  full  a 
year  before  Strongbow. 

Strongbow  came  at  last.  The  conditions  agreed  on  before- 
hand between  himself  and  the  Leinster  king  were  fulfilled.  He 
was  married  to  the  daughter  of  Dermod  McMurrough,  chief  of 
Leinster,  acknowledged  Kigh  Dahma,  that  is,  successor  to  the 
crown,  while  the  Irish,  accustomed  for  ages  to  admire  valor  and 
bow  submissively  to  the  law  of  conquest,  admitted  the  claim. 
The  English  adventurer  they  looked  upon  as  one  of  themselves 
by  marriage.  Election  in  such  a  case  was  unnecessary,  or  rather, 
understood,  and  Strongbow  took  the  place  which  was  his  in  their 
eyes  by  right  of  his  wife,  of  head  under  McMurrough  of  all  the 
clans  of  Leinster. 

When,  a  little  later,  came  Henry  II.  to  be  acknowledged  by 
Strongbow  as  his  suzerain,  and  to  receive  the  homage  of  the  pre- 
sumptive heir  of  Leinster,  submission  to  him  was,  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Irish,  merely  a  consequence  of  their  own  clan  system.  They 
understood  the  homage  rendered  to  him  in  a  very  different  sense 
from  that  attached  to  it  by  feudal  nations ;  and  had  they  had  an 
inkling  of  the  real  intentions  of  the  new  comers,  not  one  of  them 
would  have  consented  to  live  under  and  bow  the  neck  to  such  a 
yoke. 

In  fact,  on  the  small  territory  where  those  great  events  were 
enacted,  two  worlds,  utterly  different  from  each  other,  stood  face 
to  face.  Cambrensis  tells  us  that  the  English  were  struck  with 
wonder  at  what  they  saw.  The  imperialism  of  Home  had  never 
touched  Ireland.  The  Danes,  opposed  so  strenuously  from  the 
outset,  and  finally  overcome,  had  never  been  able  to  introduce 
there  their  restrictive  measures  of  oppression.  The  English 
found  the  natives  in  exactly  the  same  state  as  that  in  which  Ju- 
lius Caesar  found  the  Gauls  twelve  hundred  years  before,  except  as 


136 


CLAXSHIP  AXD  FEUDALISM:. 


to  religion — the  race  governed  patriarchally  by  chieftains  allied 
to  their  subordinates  by  blood  relationship ;  no  unity  in  the  gov- 
ernment, no  common  flag,  no  private  and  hereditary  property, 
nothing  to  bind  the  tribes  together  except  religion.  It  was  not  a 
nation  properly,  but  rather  an  agglomeration  of  small  nations 
often  at  war  each  with  each,  yet  all  strongly  attached  to  Erin — 
a  mere  name,  including,  nevertheless,  the  dear  idea  of  country 
— the  chieftains  elective,  bold,  enterprising;  the  subordinates 
free,  attached  to  the  chief  as  to  a  common  father,  throwing  them- 
selves with  ardor  into  all  his  quarrels,  readv  to  die  for  him  at  any 
moment.  Around  chief  and  clansmen  circled  a  large  number  of 
brehons,  shanachies,  poets,  bards,  and  harpers — poetry,  music, 
and  war  strangely  blended  together.  The  religion  of  Christ 
spread  over  all  a  halo  of  purity  and  holiness ;  large  monasteries 
filled  with  pious  monks,  and  convents  of  devout  and  pure  virgins 
abounded  ;  bishops  and  priests  in  the  churches  chanting  psalms, 
each  accompanying  himself  with  a  many-stringed  harp,  gave  forth 
sweet  harmony,  unheard  at  the  time  in  any  other  part  of  the 
world. 

A  most  important  feature  to  be  considered  is  their  under- 
standing of  property.  Hereditary  right  of  land  with  respect  to 
individuals,  and  the  transmission  of  property  of  any  kind  by  right 
of  primogeniture,  were  unknown  among  them.  If  a  specified 
amount  of  territory  was  assigned  to  the  chieftain,  a  smaller  por- 
tion to  the  bishop,  the  shanachy,  head  poet,  and  other  civil  officers 
each  in  his  degree,  such  property  was  attached  to  the  office  and 
not  to  the  man  who  filled  it,  but  passed  to  his  elected  successor 
and  not  to  his  own  children  ;  while  the  great  bulk  of  the  territory 
belonged  to  the  clan  in  common.  Xo  one  possessed  the  right  to 
alienate  a  single  rood  of  it,  and,  if  at  times  a  portion  was  granted 
to  exiles,  to  strangers,  to  a  contiguous  clan,  the  whole  tribe  was 
consulted  on  the  subject.  Over  the  common  land  large  herds  of 
cattle  roamed — the  property  of  individuals  who  could  own  noth- 
ing, except  of  a  movable  nature,  beyond  their  small  wooden  houses. 

This  state  of  things  had  existed,  according  to  their  annals,  for 
several  thousand  years.  Their  ancestors  had  lived  happily  un- 
der such  social  conditions,  which  they  wished  to  abide  in  and 
hand  down  to  their  posterity. 

Foreign  trade  was  distasteful  to  them :  in  fact,  they  had  no 
inrlinatinn  for  rommrrcr  Lucre  they  despised,  scarcely  know- 
ing the  use  of  monev,  which  had  been  lately  introduced  among 
them,  let,  being  refined  in  their  tastes,  fond  of  ornament, 
of  wine  at  their  feasts,  loving  to  adorn  the  persons  of  their 
wives  and  daughters  with  silk  and  gems,  they  had  allowed  the 
Danes  to  dwell  in  their  seaports,  to  trade  in  those  commodities, 
and  to  import  for  their  use  what  the  land  did  not  produce. 

Those  seaport  towns  had  been  fortified  by  the  Xorthmen  on 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


137 


their  first  victories  when  they  took  possession  of  them.  Through- 
out the  rest  of  the  island,  a  fortress  or  a  large  town  was  not  to  be 
seen.  The  people,  being  all  agriculturists  or  graziers,  loved  to 
dwell  in  the  country  ;  their  houses  were  built  of  wattle  and  clay, 
yet  comfortable  and  orderly. 

The  mansions  of  the  chieftains  were  neither  large  architec- 
tural piles,  nor  frowning  fortresses.  They  bore  the  name  of  raths 
when  used  for  dwellings  ;  of  duns  when  constructed  with  a  view 
to  resisting  an  attack.  In  both  cases,  they  were,  in  part  under 
ground,  in  part  above ;  the  whole  circular  in  form,  built  some- 
times of  large  stones,  oftener  of  walls  of  sodded  clay. 

Instead  of  covering  their  limbs  with  coats  of  mail,  like  the 
warriors  of  mediaeval  Europe,  they  wore  woollen  garments  even 
in  war,  and  for  ornaments  chains  or  plates  of  precious  metal. 
The  Norman  invaders,  clad  in  heavy  mail,  were  surprised,  there- 
fore, to  find  themselves  face  to  face  with  men  in  their  estimation 
unprotected  and  naked.  More  astonished  were  they  still  at  the 
natural  boldness  and  readiness  of  the  Irish  in  speaking  before  their 
chieftains  and  princes,  not  understanding  that  all  were  of  the 
same  blood  and  cognizant  of  the  fact. 

Still  less  could  they  understand  the  freedom  and  familiarity 
existing  between  the  Irish  nobility  and  the  poorest  of  their  kins- 
men, so  different  from  the  haughty  bearing  of  an  aristocracy  of 
foreign  extraction  to  the  serfs  and  villeins  of  a  people  they  had 
conquered. 

The  two  nations  now  confronting  each  other  had,  therefore, 
nothing  in  common,  unless,  perhaps,  an  excessive  pertinacity  of 
purpose.  The  new  comers  belonged  to  a  stern,  unyielding, 
systematicjstack:,  which  was  destined  to  give  to  Europe  that  great 
character  so  superior  in  our  times  to  that  of  southern  or  eastern 
nations.  The  natives  possessed  that  strong  attachment  to  their 
time-honored  customs,  so  peculiar  to  patriarchal  tribes,  in  whose 
nature  traditions  and  social  habits  are  so  strongly  intermingled, 
that  they  are  ineradicable  save  by  the  utter  extirpation  of  the 
people. 

And  now  the  characteristics  of  both  races  were  to  be  brought 
out  in  strong  contrast  by  the  great  question  of_  property  mthft 
soil,  which  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  struggle  b*etween  clanship 
ana  feudalism.  The  Irish,  as  we  have  seen,  knew  nothing  of 
individual  property  in  land,  nor  of  tenure,  nor  of  rent,  much  less 
of  forfeiture.  They  were  often  called  upon  by  their  chieftains  to 
contribute  to  their  support  in  ways  not  seldom  oppressive  enough, 
but  the  contributions  were  always  in  kind. 

A  new  and  very  different  system  was  to  be  attempted,  to  which 
the  Irish  at  first  appeared  to  consent,  because  they  did  not  under- 
stand it,  attaching,  as  they  did,  their  own  ideas  to  words,  which, 
in  the  mouths  of  the  invaders,  had  a  very  different  meaning. 


133 


CLAXSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


With  the  Irish  "  to  do  homage "  meant  to  acknowledge  the 
superiority  of  another,  either  on  account  of  his  lawful  author- 
ity or  his  success  in  war ;  and  the  consequences  of  this  <»ct  were, 
either  the  fulfilment  of  the  enactments  contained  in  the  "  Book 
of  Rights,"  or  submission  to  temporary  conditions  guaranteed 
by  hostages.  But  that  the  person  doing  homage  became  by  that 
act  the  Liegeman  of  the  suzerain  for  life  and  hereditarily  in  his 
posterity,  subject  to  be  deprived  of  all  privileges  of  citizenship, 
as  well  as  to  the  possibility  of  seeing  all  his  lands  forfeited,  besides 
many  minor  penalties  enjoined  by  the  feudal  code  which  often 
resolved  itself  into  mere  might — such  a  meaning  of  the  word 
homage  could  by  no  possibility  enter  the  mind  of  an  Irishman  at 
that  period. 

Hence,  when,  after  the  atrocities  committed  by  the  first  invad- 
ers, who  respected  neither  treaties  nor  the  dictates  of  humanity, 
not  even  the  saDctuary  and  the  sacredness  of  religious  houses, 
Henry  II.  came  with  an  army,  large  and  powerful  for  that  time, 
the  Irish  people  and  their  chieftains,  hoping  that  he  would  put 
an  end  to  the  crying  tyranny  of  the  Fitzstephens,  Fitzgeralds, 
De  Lacys,  and  others,  went  to  meet  him  and  acknowledge  his 
authority  as  head  chieftain  of  Leinster  through  Strongbow,  and, 
perhaps,  as  the  monarch  who  should  restore  peace  and  happiness 
to  the  whole  island.  McCarthv,  king  of  Desmond,  was  the  first 
Irish  prince  to  pay  homage  to  Henry. 

While  the  king  was  spending  the  Christmas  festivities  in  Dub- 
lin, many  other  chieftains  arrived  ;  among  them  O'Carrol  of  Oriel 
and  O'Rourke  of  Brefihy.  Eoderic  O'Connor  of  Connaught, 
till  then  acknowledged  by  many  as  monarch  of  Ireland,  thought 
at  first  of  fighting,  but,  as  was  nis  custom,  he  ended  by  a  treaty, 
wherein,  it  is  said,  he  acknowledged  Henry  as  his  suzerain,  and 
thus  placed  Ireland  at  his  feet.  Ulster  alone  had  not  seen  the 
invaders ;  but,  as  its  inhabitants  did  not  protest  with  arms  in 
their  hands,  the  Xormans  pretended  that  from  that  moment  they 
were  the  rightful  owners  of  the  island. 

Without  a  moment's  delav  they  began  to  feudalize  the  conn- 
try  by  dividing  the  land  and  building  castles.  These  two  opera- 
tions, which  we  now  turn  to,  opened  the  eyes  of  the  Irish  to  the 
deception  which  had  been  practised  upon  them,  and  were  the 
real  origin  of  the  momentous  struggle  which  is  still  being  waged 
to-day. 

Sir  John  Davies,  the  English  attorney-general  of  James  I., 
has  stated  the  whole  case  in  a  sentence  :  "  All  Ireland  was  bv 
Henry  H.  cantonized  among  ten  of  the  English  nation  ;  and, 
though  they  had  not  gained  possession  of  one-third  of  the  king- 
dom, yet  in  title  they  were  owners  and  lords  of  all,  so  as  nothing 
was  left  to  be  granted  to  the  natives.', 

McCarthy,  king  of  Desmond,  had  been  the  first  to  acknowledge 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


139 


the  authority  of  Henry  II.,  yet  McCarthy's  lands  were  among  the 
first,  if  not  the  first,  bestowed  by  Henry  on  his  minions.  The 
grant  may  be  seen  in  Ware,  and  it  is  worthy  of  perusal  as  a  sam- 
ple of  the  many  grants  which  followed  it,  whereby  Henry  at- 
tempted a  total  revolution  in  the  tenure  of  land.  The  charter 
giving  Meath  to  De  Lacy  was  the  only  one  which  by  a  clause 
seemed  to  .preserve  the  old  customs  of  the  country  as  to  territory  ; 
and  yet  it  was  in  Meath  that  the  greatest  atrocities  were  com- 
mitted. 

Yet  one  difficulty  presented  itself  to  the  invaders :  their 
rights  were  only  on  paper,  whereas  the  Irish  were  still  in  posses- 
sion of  the  greatest  part  of  the  island,  and  once  the  real  purpose 
of  the  Normans  showed  itself,  they  were  no  longer  disposed  to 
submit  to  Henry  or  to  any  of  his  appointed  lords.  The  territory 
had  to  be  wrested  from  them  by  force  of  arms. 

The  English  claimed  the  whole  island  as  their  own.  They 
were,  in  fact,  masters  only  of  the  portion  occupied  by  their  troops ; 
the  remainder  was,  therefore,  to  be  conquered.  And  if  in  Des- 
mond, where  the  whole  strength  of  the  English  first  fell,  they 
possessed  only  a  little  more  than  one-fourth  of  the  soil,  what  was 
the  case  in  the  rest  of  the  island,  the  most  of  which  had  not  yet 
seen  them  % 

Long  years  of  war  would  evidently  be  required  to  subdue  it, 
and  the  systematic  mind  of  the  conquerors  immediately  set  about 
devising  the  best  means  for  the  attainment  of  their  purpose. 
The  lessons  gathered  from  their  continental  experience  suggested 
these  means  immediately  ;  they  saw  that  by  covering  the  country 
with  feudal  castles  they  could  in  the  end  conquer  the  most  stub- 
born nation.  A  thorough  revolution  was  intended.  The  two 
systems  were  so  entirely  antagonistic  to  each  other  that  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Norman  project  involved  a  change  of  land  tenure, 
laws,  customs,  dress — every  thing.  Even  the  music  of  the  bards 
was  to  be  silenced,  the  poetry  of  the  files  to  be  abolished,  the 
pedigrees  of  families  to  be  discontinued,  the  very  games  of  the 
people  to  be  interrupted  and  forbidden.  A  vast  number  of  cas- 
tles was  necessary.  The  project  was  a  fearful  one,  cruel,  barba- 
rous, worthy  of  pagan  antiquity.  It  was  undertaken  with  a  kind 
of  ferocious  alacrity,  and  in  a  short  time  it  appeared  near  realiza- 
tion. But  in  the  long  run  it  failed,  and  four  hundred  years  later, 
under  the  eighth  Henry,  it  was  as  far  from  completion  as  the  day 
on  which  the  second  Henry  left  the  island  in  1171. 

To  show  the  importance  which  the  invaders  attached  to  their 
system,  and  the  ardor  with  which  they  set  about  putting  it  in 
practice,  we  have  only  to  extract  a  few  passages  from  the  old 
annals  of  the  islands ;  they  are  wonderfully  expressive  in  their 
simplicity : 

"A.  JD.  1176.    The  English  were  driven  from  Limerick  by 

\m 


HO 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


Donnall  O'Brian.  An  English  castle  was  in  process  of  erection 
at  Kells." — {Four  Masters.) 

"A.  D.  1178.  The  English  built  and  fortified  a  castle  at 
Kenlis,  the  key  of  those  parts  of  Meath,  against  the  incursions 
of  the  Ulster  men." — {Wares  Antiquities?) 

"  A.  D.  1180.  Hugh  De  Lacy  planted  several  colonies  in 
Meath,  and  fortified  the  country  with  many  castles,  for  the  de- 
fence and  security  of  the  English." — (Ibid.) 

Such  enumerations  might  be  prolonged  indefinitely ;  we  con- 
clude with  the  following  entry  taken  from  the  Four  Masters  : 

CI/  » 

"A.  D.  1186.  Hugh  De  Lacy,  the  profaner  and  destroyer  of 
many  churches,  Lord  of  the  English  of  Meath  (the  Irish  cannot 
call  nim  their  lord),  Breflhi,  and  Oirghialla,  he  who  had  con- 
quered the  greater  part  of  Ireland  for  the  English,  and  of  whose 
English  castles  all  Jleath,from  the  Shannon  to  the  sea,  was  full^ 
after  haying  finished  the  castle  of  Der  Magh,  set  out  accompanied 
by  three  Englishmen  to  yisit  it.  .  .  .  One  of  the  men  of  Tebtha, 
a  youth  named  O'Miadhaigh,  approached  him,  and  with  an  axe 
severed  his  head  from  his  body." 

So  wide-reaching  and  comprehensive  was  the  plan  of  the 
invaders  from  the  beginning  that  they  felt  confident  of  holding 
possession  of  Ireland  forever ;  and  to  effect  this  they  must  cer- 
tainly have  intended  to  destroy  or  drive  out  the  native  race,  or 
at  best  to  make  slaves  of  as  many  of  them  as  they  chose  to  keep. 
Thus  they  had  prophecies  manufactured  for  the  purpose,  and 
Cambrensis,  in  his  second  book,  chapter  xxxiii.,  says  confidently  : 
"  Prophecies  promise  a  full  victory  to  the  English  people  .... 
and  that  the  island  of  Hibernia  shall  be  subjected  and  fortified 
with  castles — literally  incastellated,  incastellatam — throughout 
from  sea  to  sea." 

Meanwhile,  together  with  the  building  of  castles,  the  partition 
of  the  territory  was  being  carried  out.  The  ten  great  lords, 
among  whom,  according  to  Sir  John  Davies,  Henry  II.  had  can- 
tonized  Ireland,  saw  the  necessity  of  giving  a  part  of  their  large 
estates  to  their  followers  that  so  they  might  occupy  the  whole. 
McGeohegan  compiles  from  TVare  the  best  view  of  this  very  in- 
teresting and  comparatively  unexplored  subject.  Curious  details 
are  found  there,  showing  that,  with  the  exception  of  Ulster,  not 
only  the  geography,  but  even  the  most  minute  topography  of  the 
country,  had  been  well  studied  bv  those  feudal  chieftains.  Their 
characteristic  love  for  system  runs  all  through  these  transactions. 

But  the  Irish  had  now  seen  enough.  The  whole  country  was 
in  a  blaze.  That  kind  of  guerilla  war  peculiar  to  the  Celtic  clans 
began.  The  newly  built  castles  were  attacked  and  often  captured 
and  destroyed.  Strongbow  was  shut  up  and  besieged  in  Water- 
ford,  which  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Danes.  The  latter  sided 
everywhere  with  the  Irish.    Limerick  changed  hands  several 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


141 


times,  until  Donnall  O'Brian,  who  was  left  in  possession,  set  fire 
to  it  rather  than  see  it  fall  again  into  the  hands  of  the  invaders. 

In  Meath,  where  the  numerous  castles  of  De  Lacy  were  situ- 
ated, a  war  to  the  knife  was  being  waged.  O'Melachlin  first 
tried  persuasion,  but  in  conference  with  De  Lacy  he  dared  inveigh 
loudly  against  the  King  of  England,  and,  as  his  words  must  have 
expressed  the  feelings  of  the  great  majority  of  the  people,  we 
give  them : 

"  Notwithstanding  his  promise  of  supporting  me  in  the  posses- 
sion of  my  wealth  and  dignities,  he  has  sent  robbers  to  invade  my 
patrimony.  Avaricious  and  sparing  of  his  own  possessions,  he 
is  lavish  of  those  of  others,  and  thus  enriches  libertines  and  prof- 
ligates who  have  consumed  the  patrimony  of  their  fathers  in 
debauchery." 

This  manly  protest  was  answered  by  the  stroke  of  a  dagger 
from  the  hand  of  Raymond  Legros,  and,  after  being  beheaded, 
CVMelachlin  was  buried  feet  upward  as  a  rebel. 

The  monarch  himself,  Roderic  O'Connor,  finally  appeared  on 
the  scene,  beat  the  English  at  Thurles,  and,  marching  into  Meath, 
laid  the  country  waste. 

Henry  at  last  saw  the  necessity  of  adopting  a  milder  policy, 
and  O'Connor  dispatching  to  England  Catholicus  O'DufFy,  Arcn- 
bishop  of  Tuam,  Lawrence  O'Toole,  of  Dublin,  and  Concors, 
Abbot  of  St.  Brendan,  the  Treaty  of  Windsor  was  concluded, 
which  was  really  a  compromise,  and  yet  remained  the  true  law 
of  the  land  for  four  hundred  years.  It  may  be  seen  in  Rymer's 
"  Fcedera." 

Sir  John  Davies  justly  remarks  that  by  the  treaty  "  the  Irish 
lords  only  promised  to  become  tributaries  to  King  Henry  II. ; 
and  such  as  pay  only  tribute,  though  they  are  placed  by  Bodin 
in  the  first  degree  of  subjection,  yet  are  not  properly  subjects,  but 
sovereigns  ;  for  though  they  be  less  and  inferior  to  the  princes  to 
whom  they  pay  tribute,  yet  they  hold  all  other  points  of  sov- 
ereignty. 

"And,  therefore,  though  King  Henry  had  the  title  of  Sovereign 
Lord  over  the  Irish,  yet  did  he  not  put  those  things  in  execu- 
tion, which  are  the  true  marks  of  sovereignty. 

"  For  to  give  laws  unto  a  people,  to  institute  magistrates  and 
officers  over  them,  to  punish  or  pardon  malefactors,  to  have  the 
sole  authority  of  making  war  or  peace,  are  the  true  marks  of 
sovereignty,  which  King  Henry  II.  had  not  in  Ireland,  but  the 
Irish  lords  did  still  retain  all  those  prerogatives  to  themselves. 
For  they  governed  their  people  by  the  Brehon  law ;  they  ap- 
pointed their  own  magistrates  and  officers ;  .  .  .  .  they  made 
war  and  peace  one  with  another,  without  control ;  and  this  thev 
did  not  only  during  the  reign  of  Henry  II.,  but  afterward  in  all 
times,  even  until  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.' 1 


U2 


CLANSniP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


By  fin  article  of  the  treaty  the  Irish  were  allowed  to  live  m  the 
Pale  if  they  chose  ;  and  even  there  they  conld  enjoy  their  cus- 
toms in  peace,  as  far  as  the  letter  of  the  law  went.  Many  actfe 
of  Irish  parliaments,  it  is  true,  were  passed  for  the  purpose  of 
depriving  them  of  that  right,  but  without  success. 

Edmund  Spenser,  himself  living  in  the  Pale  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  speaks  as  an  eye-witness  of  "  having  seen  their  meet- 
ings on  their  ancient  accustomed  hills,  where  they  debated  and 
asttled  matters  according  to  the  Brehon  laws,  between  family  and 
family,  township  and  township,  assembling  in  large  numbers,  and 
going,  according  to  their  custom,  all  armed." 

Stanihurst  also,  a  contemporary  of  Spenser,  had  witnessed  the 
breaking  up  of  those  meetings,  and  seen  "  the  crowds  in  long 
lines,  coming  down  the  hills  in  the  wake  of  each  chieftain,  he  the 
proudest  that  could  bring  the  largest  company  home  to  his 
evening  supper." 

Here  would  be  the  proper  place  to  speak  of  the  Brehon  law, 
which  remained  thus  in  antagonism  to  feudal  customs  for  several 
centuries.  Up  to  recently,  however,  only  vague  notions  could  be 
given  of  that  code.  But  at  this  moment  antiquarians  are  revis- 
ing and  studying  it  preparatory  to  publishing  the  "  Senchus 
Mor  "  in  which  the  Irish  law  is  contained.  It  is  known  that  it 
existed  previous  to  the  conversion  of  Ireland  to  Christianity,  and 
that  the  laws  of  tanistry  and  of  gavelkind,  the  customs  of  gossip- 
red  and  of  fostering,  were  of  pagan  origin.  Patrick  revised  the 
code  and  corrected  what  could  not  coincide  with  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. He  also  introduced  into  the  island  many  principles  of 
the  Roman  civil  and  canon  law,  which,  without  destroying  the 
peculiarities  natural  to  the  Irish  character,  invested  their  code 
with  a  more  modern  and  Christian  aspect. 

Edmund  Campian,  who  afterward  died  a  martyr  under  Eliza- 
beth, says,  in  his  "Account  of  Ireland,"  written  in  May,  1571 : 
"  They  (the  Irish)  speak  Latin  like  a  vulgar  language,  learned  in 
their  common  schools  of  leechcraft  and  law,  whereat  they  begin 
children,  and  hold  on  sixteen  or  twenty  years,  conning  by  rote 
the  aphorisms  of  Hippocrates,  and  the  Civil  Institutes,  and  a  few 
other  parings  of  these  two  faculties.  I  have  seen  them  where 
they  kept  school,  ten  in  some  one  chamber,  grovelling  upon 
couches  of  straw,  their  books  at  their  noses,  themselves  lying 
prostrate,  and  so  to  chant  out  their  lessons  by  piecemeal,  being 
the  most  part  lusty  fellows  of  twenty-five  years  and  upward." 

It  was  then  after  studies  of  from  sixteen  to  twenty  years  that 
the  Brehon  judge— the  great  one  of  a  whole  sept,  or  the  inferior 
one  of  a  single  noble  family — sat  at  certain  appointed  times,  in 
the  open  air,  on  a  hill  generally,  having  for  his  seat  clods  of  earth, 
to  decide  on  the  various  subjects  of  difference  among  neighbors. 

Sir  James  Ware  remarks  that  they  were  not  acquainted  with 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


H3 


the  laws  of  England.  He  might  have  better  said,  they  preferred 
their  own,  as  not  coming  from  cold  and  pagan  Scandinavia,  but 
from  the  warm  south,  the  greatest  of  human  law-givers,  the 
jurisconsults  of  Old  Rome,  and  the  holy  expounders  of  the  laws 
of  Christian  Rome. 

What  were  those  laws  of  England  of  which  Ware  speaks  ? 
There  is  no  question  here  of  the  common  law  which  came  into 
use  in  times  posterior  to  Henry  II.,  and  which  the  English  de- 
rived chiefly  from  the  Christian  civil  and  canon  law  ;  but  of  those 
feudal  enactments,  which  the  Anglo-Normans  endeavored  to 
introduce  into  Ireland,  for  the  purpose  of  supplanting  the  old 
law  and  customs  of  the  natives. 

There  was,  first,  the  law  of  territory,  if  we  may  so  call  it,  by 
which  the  supreme  ruler  became  really  owner  of  the  integral 
soil,  which  he  distributed  among  his  great  vassals,  to  be  redistrib- 
uted by  them  among  inferior  vassals. 

There  was  the  law  of  primogeniture,  which  even  to  this  day 
obtains  in  England,  and  has  brought  about  in  that  country  since 
the  days  of  William  the  Conqueror,  and  in  Ireland  since  the 
English  "  plantations  "  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
the  state  of  things  now  so  well  known  to  Europe. 

There  was  also  the  long  list  of  feudal  conditions  to  be  ob- 
served, by  the  fulfilment  of  which  the  great  barons  and  their 
followers  held  their  lands.  For  their  tenure  was  liable  to  hom- 
age and  fealty,  as  understood  in  the  feudal  sense,  to  wardships 
and  impediments  to  marriage,  to  fines  for  alienations,  to  what 
English  legists  call  primer  seizins,  rents,  reliefs,  escheats,  and, 
finally,  forfeitures ;  this  last  was  at  all  times  more  strictly  ob- 
served in  England  than  in  any  other  feudal  country,  and  by  its 
enactments  so  many  noble  families  have,  in  the  course  of  ages, 
been  reduced  to  beggary,  and  their  chiefs  often  brought  to  the 
block.    English  history  is  filled  with  such  cases. 

The  law  of  wardship,  by  which  no  minor,  heir,  or  heiress 
could  have  other  guardian  than  the  suzerain,  and  could  not  marry 
without  his  consent,  was  at  all  times  a  great  source  of  wealth  to 
the  royal  exchequer,  and  a  correspondingly  heavy  tribute  laid 
on  the  vassal.  So  profitable  did  the  English  kings  find  this 
law,  that  they  speedily  introduced  it  into  Church  affairs,  every 
bishop's  see  or  monastery  being  considered,  at  the  death  of  the 
incumbent,  as  a  minor,  a  ward,  to  be  taken  care  of  by  the  sove- 
reign, who  enjoyed  the  revenues  without  bothering  himself  par- 
ticularly with  the  charges. 

There  were,  finally,  the  hunting  laws,  which  forbade  any 
man  to  hunt  or  hawk  even  on  his  own  estate. 

Such  were  the  laws  of  England,  which  Sir  James  Ware  com- 
plains the  Irish  did  not  know. 

In  signing  the  treaty  of  Windsor,  the  English  king  had  appa- 


144 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


rent! j  recognized  in  the  person  of  Roderic  O'Connor,  and  in  the 
Irish  through  him,  the  chief  rights  of  sovereignty  over  the  whole 
island,  except  Leinster  and,  perhaps,  Meath.  But,  at  the  same 
time,  a  passage  or  two  in  the  treaty  concealed  a  meaning  cer- 
tainly unperceived  by  the  Irish,  but  fraught  with  mischief  and 
misfortune  to  their  country. 

First,  Roderic  O'Connor  acknowledged  himself  and  his  suc- 
cessors as  liegemen  of  the  kings  of  England ;  in  a  second  place, 
the  privileges  conceded  to  the  Irish  were  to  continue  only  so 
long  as  they  remained  faithful  to  their  oath  of  allegiance.  TVe 
see  here  the  same  confusion  of  ideas,  which  we  remarked  on  the 
meaning  given  to  the  word  homage  by  either  party.  The  natives 
of  the  island  understood  to  be  liegemen  and  under  oath  in  a 
sense  conformable  to  their  usual  ideas  of  subordination  ;  the  Eng- 
lish invested  those  words  with  the  feudal  meaning. 

All  the  calamities  of  the  four  following  centuries,  and,  con- 
sequently, all  the  horrors  of  the  times  subsequent  to  the  Prot- 
estant Reformation,  were  to  be  the  penalty  of  that  misunder- 
standing. 

Let  us  picture  to  ourselves  two  races  of  men  so  different  as 
the  Milesian  Celts  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Scandinavian  ISTor- 
man  French  on  the  other,  having  concluded  such  a  treaty  as  that 
of  Windsor,  each  side  resolved  to  push  its  own  interpretation 
to  the  bitter  end. 

The  English  are  in  possession  of  a  territory  clearly  enough 
defined,  but  they  are  ever  on  the  alert  to  seize  any  opportunity 
of  a  real  or  pretended  violation  of  it,  in  order  to  extend  their 
limits  and  subjugate  the  whole  island.  Yet  they  are  bound  to 
allow  the  Brehon  Irish  to  live  in  their  midst,  governed  by  their 
own  customs  and  laws.  Moreover,  they  acknowledge  that  the 
former  great  Irish  lords  of  the  very  country  which  they  occupy 
are  not  mere  Irish,  but  of  noble  blood ;  for,  from  the  beginning, 
the  English  recognized  five  families  of  the  country,  known  as 
the  "  five  bloods,"  as  pure  and  noble,  in  theory  at  least. 

The  Irish  without  the  Pale  are  acknowledged  as  perfectly 
independent,  completely  beyond  English  control,  with  their  own 
magistrates  and  laws,  even  that  of  war ;  subject  only  to  tribute. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  this  independence  is  rendered  absolutely 
insecure  by  the  imposition  of  conditions,  whose  meaning  is  well 
known  and  perfectly  understood  in  all  the  countries  conquered 
by  the  Scandinavians,  but  utterly  beyond  the  comprehension  of 
the  Irish. 

The  consequence  is  clear  :  war  began  with  the  conclusion  of 
the  treaty — a  war  which  raged  for  four  centuries,  until  a  new 
and  more  powerful  incentive  to  slaughter  and  desolation  showed 
itself  in  the  Reformation,  ushered  in  by  Henry  YIII. 

First  came  a  general  rebellion.    This  is  the  word  used  oy 


OLANSniP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


145 


Ware,  when  John,  a  boy  of  twelve  years  of  age,  was  dispatched 
by  his  father  Henry,  with  the  title  of  Lord  of  Ireland,  to  receive 
the  submission  of  various  Irish  lords  at  Waterford,  where  he 
landed.  "  The  young  English  gentlemen,"  says  Cambrensis, 
who  was  a  witness  of  the  scene,  "  used  the  Irish  chieftains  with 
Bcorn,  because,"  as  he  says,  "  their  demeanor  was  rude  and  bar- 
barous." The  Irish  naturally  resented  this  treatment  from  a  lad, 
as  they  would  have  resented  it  from  his  father  ;  and  they  retired 
in  wrath  to  take  up  arms  and  raise  the  whole  land,  to  "  rebellion." 

This  solemn  protest  was  not  without  effect  in  Europe.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Richard  I.,  Clement  III.,  on  ap- 
pointing, by  the  king's  request,  William  de  Longchamps,  Bishop 
of  Ely,  as  his  legate  in  England,  Wales,  and  Ireland,  took  good 
care  to  limit  the  authority  of  this  prelate  to  those  parts  of  Ire- 
land which  lay  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Earl  of  Moreton — 
that  is,  of  John,  brother  to  Richard.  He  had  power  to  exercise 
his  jurisdiction  "  in  Anglia,  Wallia,  et  illis  Hiberniae  partibus  in 
quibus  Joannes  Moretonii  Comes  potestatem  habet  et  domini- 
um."— {Matth.  Paris.)  It  would  seem,  then,  that  Clement  III. 
knew  nothing  of  the  bull  of  Adrian  IY. 

The  war,  as  we  said,  was  incessant.  England  finally  so  de- 
spaired of  conquering  the  country,  that  some  lords  of  the  court 
of  Henry  VI.  caused  him  to  write  letters  to  some  of  his  "  Irish 
enemies,"  urging  the  latter  to  effect  the  conquest  of  the  island  in  ^ 
the  king's  name.  This  was  assuredly  a  last  resource,  which  his- 
tory has  never  recorded  of  any  other  nation  warring  on  a  rival. 
But  even  in  this  England  failed.  Those  lords — the  "  Irish  ene- 
mies "  of  King  Henry  VI. — sent  his  letters  to  the  Duke  of  York, 
then  Lord-Lieutenant,  "  and  published  to  the  world  the  shame 
of  England." — {Sir  John  Davies.) 

The  result  was  that,  at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VI., 
the  Irish,  in  the  words  of  the  same  author,  "became  victorious 
over  all,  without  blood  or  sweat ;  only  that  little  canton  of  land, 
called  the  English  Pale,  containing  four  small  shires,  maintained 
yet  a  bordering  war  with  the  Irish,  and  retained  the  form  of 
English  government." 

Feudalism  was  thus  reduced  in  Ireland  to  the  small  territory 
lying  between  the  Boyne  and  the  Liffey,  subject  to  the  constant 
annoyance  of  the  O'Moores,  O' Byrnes,  and  6'Cavanaghs.  And 
this  state  of  affairs  continued  until  the  period  of  the  so-called 
Reformation  in  England. 

Ireland  proved  itself  then  the  only  spot  in  Western  Europe 
where  feudal  laws  and  feudal  customs  could  take  no  root. 
Through  all  other  nations  of  the  Continent  those  laws  spread  by 
degrees,  from  the  countries  invaded  by  the  Northmen,  into  the 
most  distant  parts,  modified  and  mitigated  in  some  instances  by 
the  innate  power  of  resistance  left  by  former  institutions.  In 


146 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


this  small  island  alone,  where  clanship  still  held  its  own,  feudal- 
ism proved  a  complete  failure.  We  merely  record  a  fact,  sug- 
gestive, indeed,  of  thought,  which  proves,  if  no  more,  at  least 
that  the  Celtic  nature  is  far  more  persevering  and  steady  of  pur- 
pose than  is  generally  supposed. 

But  a  more  interesting  spectacle  still  awaits  us — that  of  the 
English  themselves  morally  overcome  and  won  over  by  the  ex- 
ample of  their  antagonists,  renouncing  their  feudal  usages,  and 
adopting  manners  which  they  had  at  first  deemed  rude  and  bar- 
barous. 

The  treaty  of  Windsor,  which  was  subsequently  confirmed 
by  many  diplomatic  enactments,  obliged  King  Henry  III.  of 
England  to  address  O'Brien  of  Thomond  in  the  following  words : 
"  Hex  regi  Thomond  salutemP  The  same  English  monarch  was 
compelled  to  give  O'Neill  of  Ulster  the  title  of  jRex,  after  having 
used,  inadvertently  perhaps,  that  of  Regulus. — {Sir  John  Davies.) 
Both  O'Brien  and  O'Neill  lived  in  the  midst  of  a  thickly  popu- 
lated Irish  district,  with  a  few  great  English  lords  shut  up  in 
their  castles  on  the  borders  of  the  respective  territory  of  the 
clans. 

The  Norman  lords  in  many  parts  of  the  country  lived  right 
in  the  midst  of  an  Irish  population,  with  its  Brehon  judges, 
shanachies,  harpers,  and  other  officers,  attached  to  their  customs 
of  gossipred,  fostering,  tanistry,  gavelkind,  and  other  usages, 
which  the  parliaments  of  Drogheda,  Kilkenny,  Dublin,  Trim, 
and  other  places,  were  soon  to  declare  lewd  and  barbarous.  The 
question  of  the  moment  was :  Which  of  the  two  systems,  clan- 
ship or  feudalism,  brought  thus  into  close  contact  and  antago- 
nism, was  to  prevail  \ 

Ere  long  it  began  to  appear  that  the  aversion  first  felt  by  the 
English  lords  at  such  strange  customs  was  not  entirely  invin- 
cible, and  many  of  them  even  went  so  far  as  to  chcose  wives 
from  among  the  native  families.  In  fact,  there  lay  a  great 
example  before  their  eyes  from  the  outset,  in  the  marriage  of 
Strongbow  with  Eva,  the  daughter  of  McMurrough.  Intermar- 
riage soon  became  the  prevailing  custom ;  so  that  the  posterity 
of  the  first  invaders  was,  after  all,  to  have  Celtic  blood  in  its 
veins. 

Hence,  a  distinction  arose  between  the  English  by  blood  and 
the  English  by  birth.  The  first  had,  indeed,  an  English  name  ; 
but  they  were  born  in  the  island,  and  soon  came  to  be  known  as 
degenerate  English. — That  degeneracy  was  merely  the  moral 
efiect  of  constant  intercourse  with  the  natives  of  their  neigh- 
borhood.— The  others  were  continually  shifting,  being  always 
composed  of  the  latest  new-comers  from  England. 

It  is  something  well  worthy  of  remark  that  a  residence  ot  a 
short  duration  sufficed  to  blend  in  unison  two  natures  so  opposed 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


147 


as  the  Irish  and  the  English.  The  latter,  not  content  with  wed- 
ding Irish  wives,  sent  their  own  children  to  be  fostered  by  their 
Irish  friends  ;  and  the  children  naturally  came  from  the  nursery 
more  Irish  than  their  fathers.  They  objected  no  longer  to  be- 
coming gossips  for  each  other  at  christenings,  to  adopt  the  dress 
of  their  foster-parents,  whose  language  was  in  many  cases  the 
only  one  which  they  brought  from  their  foster-home. 

Thus  Ireland,  even  in  districts  which  had  been  thoroughly 
devastated  by  the  first  invaders,  became  the  old  Ireland  again  ; 
and  the  song  of  the  bard  and  the  melody  of  the  harper  were 
heard  in  the  English  castle  as  well  as  in  the  Irish  rath.1 

The  nationalization  of  their  kin,  which  received  a  powerful 
impetus  from  the  fact  that  the  English  who  lived  without  the 
Pale  escaped  feudal  exactions  and  penalties  from  the  impossibil- 
ity of  enforcing  the  feudal  laws  on  Irish  territory,  alarmed  the 
Anglo-Normans  by  birth,  in  whose  hand  rested  the  engine  of 
the  government ;  and,  looking  around  for  a  remedy,  they  could 
discover  nothing  better  than  acts  of  Parliament. 

We  have  not  been  able  to  ascertain  the  precise  epoch  in  which 
the  first  Irish  Parliament  was  convened ;  indeed,  to  this  day,  it 
seems  a  debated  question.  The  general  belief,  however,  ascribes 
it  to  King  John.  The  first  mention  of  it  by  Ware  is  under  the 
year  1333,  as  late  as  Edward  III.,  more  than  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  after  the  Conquest.  But  the  need  of  stringent  rules 
to  keep  the  Irish  at  bay,  and  prevent  the  English  from  "degen- 
erating," became  so  urgent  that,  in  1367,  the  famous  Parliament 
met  at  Kilkenny,  and  enacted  the  bill  known  as  the  "  Statutes 
of  Kilkenny,"  in  which  the  matter  was  fully  elaborated,  and  a 
new  order  of  things  set  on  foot  in  Ireland. 

The  Irish  could  recognize  no  other  Parliament  than  their 
ancient  Feis  /  and,  these  having  been  discontinued  for  several 
centuries,  they  showed  their  appreciation  of  the  new  English  in- 
stitution in  the  manner  described  by  Ware  under  the  year  14:13  : 
"  On  the  11th  of  the  calends  of  February,  the  morrow  after  St. 
Matthias  day,  a  Parliament  began  at  Dublin,  and  continued  for 
the  space  of  fifteen  days  ;  in  which  time  the  Irish  burned  all  that 
stood  in  their  way,  as  their  usual  custom  was  in  times  of  other 
Parliaments." 

The  reader  who  is  acquainted  with  the  enactments  which  go 
by  the  name  of  the  "  Statutes  of  Kilkenny  "  will  scarcely  wonder 
at  this  mode  of  proceeding. 

Neither  at  that  perioa,  nor  later  on  save  once  under  Henry 

1  The  process  of  gaining  over  an  Englishman  to  Irish  manners  is  admirably  de- 
scribed in  the  "  Moderate  Cavalier,"  under  Cromwell,  quoted  by  Mr.  J.  P.  Prender- 
gast  in  his  second  edition  of  the  "  Cromwellian  Settlement,"  p.  263.  If  this  process 
were  common  with  the  Protestant  officers  of  Cromwell,  how  much  more  so  with 
Catholic  Anglo-Normans  ! 


148 


CLAXSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


VlJLL,  was  the  Irish  race  represented  in  those  assemblies.  In 
the  reign  of  Edward  III.  no  Irish  native  nor  old  English  resi- 
dent assisted  at  the  Parliament  of  Kilkenny,  but  only  English- 
men newly  arrived ;  for  all  its  acts  were  directed  against  the 
Irish  and  the  degenerate  English — against  the  latter  particularly. 
How  the  members  composing  these  Parliaments  were  elected  at 
that  time  we  do  not  know ;  but  they  were  not  summoned  from 
more  than  twelve  counties,  which  number,  first  established  by 
King  John,  gradually  dwindled,  until,  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
YIL,  it  was  reduced  to  four,  so  that  the  Irish  Parliament  came 
to  be  composed  of  a  few  men,  and  those  few  representatives  of 
purely  English  interests. 

A  true  history  of  the  times  would  demand  an  examination  of 
the  various  enactments  made  bv  these  so-called  Irish  Parlia- 
ments, as  setting  forth  more  distinctly  than  any  thing  else  could 
do  the  points  at  variance  between  the  two  nations.  Our  space, 
however,  and  indeed  our  purpose,  forbids  this.  In  order  to 
put  the  reader  in  possession  of  at  least  an  idea  of  the  difficulties 
on  either  side,  we  add  a  few  extracts  from  the  very  famous 
"  Statutes  of  Kilkenny." 

The  preamble  sets  forth  "  that  already  the  English  in  Ireland 
were  mere  Irish  in  their  language,  names,  apparel,  and  their 
manner  of  living,  and  had  rejected  the  English  laws  and  sub- 
mitted to  the  Irish,  with  whom  they  had  many  marriages  and 
alliances,  which  tended  to  the  utter  ruin  and  destruction  of  the 
commonwealth."  And  then  the  Statutes  go  on  to  enact — we 
cull  from  various  chapters  :  "  The  English  cannot  any  more  make 
peace  or  war  with  the  Irish  without  special  warrant ;  it  is  made 
penal  to  the  English  to  permit  the  Irish  to  send  their  cattle  to 
graze  upon  their  land ;  the  Irish  could  not  be  presented  by  the 
English  to  any  ecclesiastical  benefice ;  they — the  Irish — could 
not  be  received  into  any  monasteries  or  religious  houses ;  the 
English  could  not  entertain  any  of  their  bards,  or  poets,  or 
shanachies,"  etc. 

This  extraordinary  legislation  proves  beyond  any  amount  of 
facts  to  what  degree  the  posterity  of  the  first  Norman  invaders 
of  Ireland  had  adopted  Irish  customs,  and  made  themselves  one 
with  the  natives. 

The  Irish,  therefore,  had,  in  this  instance,  morally  conquered 
their  enemies,  and  feudalism  was  defeated.  Another  example 
was  given  of  the  invariable  invasions  of  the  island.  The  enemy, 
however  successful  at  the  beginning,  was  compelled  finally  to 
give  way  to  the  force  of  resistance  in  this  people ;  and  the  time- 
honored  customs  of  an  ancient  race  survived  all  attempts  at  vio- 
lent foreign  innovations.  The  posterity  of  those  proud  nobles, 
who,  with  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  had  found  nothing  but  what 
was  contemptible  in  this  nation,  so  strange  to  their  eyes,  who 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


149 


looked  upon  them  as  an  easy  victim  to  be  despoiled  of  their  land, 
and  that  land  to  be  occupied  by  them,  that  posterity  adopted, 
within,  comparatively  speaking,  a  few  years,  the  life  and  man- 
ners of  the  mere  Irish  in  their  entirety.  Feudalism  they  re- 
nounced for  the  clan.  Each  of  the  great  English  families  that 
first  landed  in  the  island  had  formed  a  new  sept,  and  the  clans 
of  the  Geraldines,  De  Courcys,  and  others,  were  admitted  into 
full  copartnership  with  the  old  Milesian  septs.    Thus  the  two 

freat  families  of  the  Burkes  in  Connaught  called  their  chiefs 
Tc Williams  Either  and  Mc Williams  Oughter.  The  Berming- 
hams  had  become  McYoris ;  the  Dixons,  McJordans ;  the  Mangles, 
McCostellos.  Other  old  English  families  were  called  McHub- 
bard,  McDavid,  etc. ;  one  of  the  Geraldine  septs  was  known  as 
McMorice,  another  as  McGibbon  ;  the  chief  of  Dunboyne's  house 
became  McPheris. 

.  Meanwhile,  "  it  was  manifest,"  says  Sir  John  Davies,  "  that 
those  who  had  the  government  of  Ireland  under  the  crown  of 
England  intended  to  make  a  perpetual  separation  and  enmity 
between  the  English  settled  in  Ireland  and  the  Irish,  in  the  ex- 
pectation that  the  English  should  in  the  end  root  out  the  Irish." 

There  is  no  doubt  that,  if  these  laws  of  Kilkenny  could  have 
been  enforced  and  carried  out,  as  they  were  meant  to  be,  the 
effect  hoped  for  by  these  legislators  might  have  been  the  natural 
result.  Yet  even  much  later  on,  at  a  period,  too,  when  the 
English  power  was  considerably  increased,  under  Henry  VIII., 
a  very  curious  discussion  of  this  possibility,  which  took  place  at 
the  time,  did  not  by  any  means  promise  an  easy  realization. 
The  following  passage  of  the  "  State  Papers,"  under  the  great 
Tudor,  contains  a  rather  sensible  view  of  the  subject,  and  is  not 
so  sanguine  of  the  success  of  the  hopes  cherished  by  the  attor- 
ney-general of  James  I. : 

"  The  lande  is  very  large — by  estimation  as  large  as  Eng- 
lande — so  that,  to  enhabit  the  whole  with  new  inhabiters,  the 
number  would  be  so  great  that  there  is  no  prince  christened  that 
commodiously  might  spare  so  many  subjects  to  depart  out  of  his 
regions.  .  .  .  But  to  enterprise  the  whole  extirpation  and  totall 
destruction  of  all  the  Irishmen  of  the  lande,  it  would  be  a  mar- 
vellous and  sumptuous  charge  and  great  difficulty,  considering 
both  the  lack  of  enhabitors,  and  the  great  hardness  and  misery 
these  Irishmen  can  endure,  both  of  hunger,  colde,  and  thirst,  and 
evill  lodging  more  than  the  inhabitants  of  any  other  lande/' 

There  were,  therefore,  evidently  difficulties  in  the  way :  vet 
it  is  certain  that  the  question  of  the  total  extirpation  of  the  Irish 
has  been  entertained  for  centuries  by  a  class  of  English  states- 
men, and  confidently  looked  for  by  the  English  nation.  Sir 
John  Davies,  as  we  see,  attributes  no  other  object  to  the  Statutes 
of  Kilkenny. 


150 


CLANSHIP  AXD  FEUDALISM. 


But  could  those  statutes  be  enforced  ?  were  they  ever  en- 
forced ?  The  same  writer  pretends  that  they  were  for  "  several 
years ; "  but  the  sequel  proves  that  they  were  not.  The  reason 
which  he  assigns  for  their  execution — that  for  a  certain  time  after 
that  Parliament  there  was  peace  in  the  island — leads  us  to 
believe  the  contrary;  for  if,  as  he  himself  justly  remarks 
before,  the  intention  of  the  legislators  was  to  create  a  perpetual 
separation  and  enmity  between  the  two  races,  the  promulgation 
and  strict  execution  of  those  statutes  would  have  immediately 
enkindled  a  war  which  could  have  ended  only  with  the  total 
extirpation  of  one  race  or  the  other. 

And  the  further  fact  that  it  was  thought  necessarv  to  reenact 
those  odious  laws  frequently  in  subsequent  Irish  Parliaments 
proves  that  they  were  not  carried  into  execution,  since  new  legis- 
lation on  the  subject  was  demanded. 

It  is  true  that  events,  transmitted  to  us  either  through  the 
Irish  annals  or  the  English  chronicles,  show  that  several  attempts 
were  made  to  enforce  those  acts  of  Kilkenny,  chieflv  against  the 
Fitz-Thomases  or  Geraldines  of  Desmond,  who  pretended,  even 
after  their  enactment,  to  be  as  independent  of  them  as  before, 
and  refused  to  attend  the  Parliament  when  convoked,  claiming 
the  strange  privilege  "  that  the  Earls  of  Desmond  should  never 
come  to  any  Parliament  or  Grand  Council,  or  within  any  walled 
town,  but  at  their  will  or  pleasure."  And  the  Desmonds  con- 
tinued in  their  persistent  opposition  to  the  English  laws  until 
the  reign  of  Elizabeth. 

But  it  was  against  Churchmen  chiefly  that  they  were  carried 
out  in  fall ;  for  we  occasionally  meet  in  the  annals  of  the  country 
with  instances  where  some  English  prelate  in  Ireland  had  been 
prosecuted  for  having  conferred  orders  on  mere  Irishmen,  and 
that  some  Norman  abbots  had  been  deposed  for  having  received 
mere  Irishmen  as  monks  into  their  monasteries. 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  cases  of  this  kind,  no  proof  can 
be  furnished  that  any  material  change  was  brought  about  in  the 
relations  of  the  old  English  settlers  with  their  Irish  neighbors. 
In  fact,  matters  progressed  so  favorably  in  this  friendly  direc- 
tion, that  at  length  the  descendants  of  Strongbow  and  his  followers 
became,  as  is  well  known,  "Hibernis  Hiberniores,"  and  the 
judges  sent  from  England  could  hold  their  circuit  only  in  the 
foui  counties  between  the  Liffey  and  the  Boyne ;  and  the  name 
given  to  the  majority  of  the  old  English  families  was  "  English 
rebels,"  while  the  natives  were  called  "Irish  enemies." 

Sir  John  Davies  himself  is  forced  to  admit  it :  "  When  the  civil 
government  grew  so  weak  and  so  loose  that  the  English  lords 
would  not  suffer  the  English  laws  to  be  executed  within  their  terri- 
tories and  seigniories,  but  in  place  thereof  both  they  and  their  peo- 
ple embraced  the  Irish  customs,  then  the  state  of  things,  like  a 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


151 


game  at  Irish,  was  so  turned  about,  that  the  English,  who  hoped 
to  make  a  perfect  conquest  of  the  Irish,  were  by  them  perfectly 
and  absolutely  conquered,  because  Victi  victorious  leges  dedereP 
The  truth  could  not  be  expressed  in  more  explicit  terms.  Yet 
all  has  not  been  said.  The  same  persevering  character,  making 
headway  against  apparently  insurmountable  obstacles,  shows 
itself  conspicuously  in  the  Irish,  in  the  preservation  of  their 
land,  which,  after  all,  was  the  great  object  of  contention  between 
the  two  races. 

The  first  Anglo-Norman  invaders,  including  Henry  II.  him- 
self, had  no  other  object  in  view  than  gradually  to  occupy  the 
whole  territory,  subject  it  to  the  feudal  laws,  give  to  Englishmen 
the  position  of  feudal  lords,  and  reduce  the  Irish  to  that  of  vil- 
leins, if  they  could  not  succeed  in  rooting  them  out. 

A  few  years  later,  by  the  Treaty  of  Windsor,  the  king  seemed 
to  confine  his  pretensions  to  Leinster,  and  perhaps  Meath,  and 
expressly  allowed  the  natives  to  keep  their  lands  in  the  other 
districts  of  the  island.  Yet  none  of  his  former  grants,  by  which 
u  he  had  cantonned  the  whole  island  between  ten  Englishmen," 
were  recalled  ;  they  continued  as  part  of  and  means  to  shape  the 
policy  of  the  invaders,  and  subsequent  Parliaments  always  sup- 
posed the  validity  of  those  former  grants  made  to  Strongbow  and 
his  followers. 

It  is  true  that  those  posterior  Acts  of  Parliament  did  not 
merely  rely  for  their  strength  on  the  first  documents,  but  on  the 
pretence  that  the  Irish  chieftains  and  people  outside  of  Leinster 
and  Meath  had  justly  forfeited  their  estates  by  not  fulfilling  the 
conditions  virtually  contained  in  the  Windsor  Treaty,  in  which 
they  had  professed  homage  and  submission  to  the  English  king. 
It  is  clear  that,  lawfully  or  unlawfully,  the  Anglo-Normans  were 
determined  to  gain  possession,  sooner  or  later,  of  the  whole  island. 

To  secure  their  end,  they  declared  that  the  natives  would  not 
be  subject  to  the  English  laws,  but  retain  their  Brehon  laws, 
which  in  their  eyes  were  no  laws  at  all,  and  which  the  Parlia- 
ment of  Kilkenny  had  declared  to  be  "  lewd  customs."  Hence- 
forth, then,  the  natives  were  out  of  the  pale  of  the  law,  could  not 
claim  its  protection,  but  became  subject  to  the  crown  of  England, 
without  political,  civil,  or  even  human  rights. 

They  were  soon,  by  reason  of  the  constant  border  wars  all 
around  the  Pale,  declared  "  alien  and  enemies."  And  these  ex- 
pressions became,  in  the  eyes  of  the  English  lawyers,  identical 
with  the  Irish  race  and  the  Irish  nature ;  so  that  at  all  times,  peace 
or  war,  even  when  the  Irish  fought  in  the  English  ranks,  aiding 
the  Plantagenets  in  their  furious  contests  with  the  Scotch  or  the 
French,  they  were  still  " Irish  enemies;"  "aliens"  unworthy 
human  rights,  villeins  in  whose  veins  no  noble  blood  could  flow, 
with  the  exception  of  five  families. 


152 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


All  the  rest  were  not  only  ignoble,  but  not  even  men  ;  noth- 
ing but  mere  Irish,  whom  any  one  might  kill,  even  though  serv- 
ing under  the  English  crown,  at  a  risk  of  being  fined  five  marks, 
to  be  paid  to  the  treasury  of  the  King  of  England,  for  having  de- 
prived his  majesty  of  a  serviceable  tool. 

This  (to  modern  eyes)  astounding  social  state  demands  a 
closer  examination  in  order  to  see  if,  at  least,  it  had  the  merit  of 
finally  procuring  for  the  English  the  possession  of  the  land  they 
coveted. 

We  find  first  that  Henry  II.,  John,  and  Henry  III.,  would 

seem  on  several  occasions  to  nave  extended  the  laws  of  England 

all  over  the  island.    But  all  English  legists  will  tell  us  that  those 

... 
laws  were  only  for  the  inhabitants  of  English  blood.    The  mere 

Irish  were  always  reputed  aliens,  or,  rather,  enemies  to  the  crown, 

so  that  it  was,  "  by  actual  fact,  often  adjudged  no  felony  to  kill  a 

mere  Irish  in  time  of  peace,"  as  Sir  John  Davies  expressly 

points  out. 

Five  families  alone  were  excepted  from  the  general  category 
and  acknowledged  to  be  of  noble  blood — the  O'Neills  of  Ulster, 
the  O'Melachlins  of  Meath,  the  O'Connors  of  Connaught,  the 
O'Briens  of  Munster,  and  the  McMurroughs  of  Leinster. 

Those  five  families,  numerous  certainly,  but  forming  only  as 
many  septs,  were,  or  appeared  to  be,  acknowledged  as  having  a 
right  to  their  lands,  and  as  able  to  bring  or  defend  actions  at  law. 
We  say,  ajjpeared  to  be,  because  they  found  themselves  on  so 
many  occasions  ranked  as  mere  Irish,  that  individuals  of  those 
septs,  induced  by  sheer  necessity,  were  often  driven,  in  spite  of 
an  almost  invincible  repugnance,  to  apply  for  and  accept  special 
charters  of  naturalization  from  the  English  kings.  Thus  in  the 
reign  of  Edward  IV.,  O'Neill,  on  the  occasion  of  his  marriage 
with  a  daughter  of  the  house  of  Kildare,  was  made  an  English 
citizen  by  special  act  of  Parliament. 

In  reality  then,  even  the  most  illustrious  members  of  the 
"  five  bloods "  were  scarcely  considered  as  enjoying  the  full 
rights  of  the  lowest  English  vassals,  although  their  ancestors  had 
been  acknowledged  kings  by  former  Anglo-Norman  monarchs  in 
public  documents  :  "Hex  Menricus  regi  (JNeiU"  etc. 

But  if  there  was  some  shadow  of  doubt  with  regard  to  the  polit- 
ical and  social  rights  of  those  great  families,  such  doubt  did  not 
exist  for  the  remainder  of  the  Irish  race.  They  were  absolutely 
without  rights.  Depriving  them  of  their  lands,  pillaging  their 
houses,  devastating  their  farms,  outraging  their  wives  and  daugh- 
ters, killing  them,  could  not  subject  the  guilty  to  any  civil  or 
criminal  action  at  law.  In  fact,  as  we  have  shown,  such  acts 
were  in  accordance  with  the  spirit,  even  with  the  letter  of  the 
law,  so  that  the  criminal,  as  we  should  consider  him,  had  but  to 
plead  that  the  man  whom  he  had  robbed  or  killed  was  a  mere 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


153 


Irishman,  and  the  proceedings  were  immediately  stopped,  if  this 
all-important  fact  were  proved ;  and  in  case  of  homicide  the  mur- 
derer escaped  by  tne  payment  of  the  fine  of  five  marks  to  the 
treasury. 

To  modern,  even  to  English  ears,  all  this  may  sound  incredible. 
Many  striking  examples  of  the  truth  of  it  might  be  produced. 
They  are  to  be  found  in  all  works  which  treat  of  the  subject. 
Sir  John  Davies,  that  great  Irish  hater,  evidently  takes  a  genuine 
delight  in  depicting  several  such  instances  with  all  their  aggra- 
vating details,  scarcely  expecting  that  every  word  he  wrote  would 
serve  to  brand  forever  with  shame  Anglo-Norman  England. 

Under  such  legislation  it  was  clear  that  life  on  the  borders  of 
the  Pale  was  not  only  insecure,  but  that  the  soil  would  remain  in 
the  grasp  of  the  strongest.  Any  Anglo-Norman  only  required  the 
power  in  order  to  take  possession  of  the  land  of  his  neighbor. 

But  it  is  not  in  man's  nature  to  submit  to  such  galling  thral- 
dom as  this,  without  at  least  an  attempt  at  retaliation.  Least  of 
all  was  it  the  nature  of  such  a  people  to  submit  to  such  meas- 
ures— a  nation,  the  most  ancient  in  Europe,  dating  their 
ownership  of  the  soil  as  far  back  as  man's  memory  could  go,  civ- 
ilized before  Scandinavia  became  a  nest  of  pirates,  Christianized 
from  the  fifth  century,  and  the  spreader  of  literature,  civilization, 
and  the  holy  faith  of  Christ  through  England,  Scotland,  Germany, 
France,  and  Northern  Italy. 

If  we  have  dwrelt  a  little,  and  only  a  little,  upon  the  intensity 
of  the  contest  waged  for  four  hundred  years  previous  to  the 
added  atrocities  introduced  by  the  Reformation,  we  have  done  so 
advisedly,  since  it  has  become  a  fashion  of  late  to  throw  a  gloss 
over  the  past,  to  ignore  it,  to  let  the  dead  bury  their  dead — all 
which  would  be  very  well,  could  it  be  done,  and  could  writers 
forget  to  stamp  the  Irish  as  unsociable,  barbarous,  and  blood- 
thirsty, because  with  arms  in  their  hands,  and  a  fire  ardent  and 
sacred  in  their  souls,  they  strove  again  and  again  to  reconquer 
the  territory  which  had  been  won  from  them  by  fraud,  and  be- 
cause they  thought  it  fair  to  kill  in  open  fight  the  men  who 
avowed  that  they  could  kill  them  even  in  peace  at  a  penalty  of 
five  marks. 

The  contest,  therefore,  never  ceased  ;  how  could  it  ?  But,  in 
that  endless  conflict  between  the  two  races,  the  loss  of  territory 
leaned  rather  to  the  English  side.  If,  with  the  help  of  their  cas- 
tles, better  discipline,  and  arms,  the  English  at  first  gained  on 
the  natives  and  extended  their  possessions  beyond  the  Pale,  a 
reaction  soon  set  in — the  Irish  had  their  day  of  revenge,  and 
entered  again  into  possession  of  the  land  of  which  they  had  been 
robbed.  In  order  to  repair  their  losses,  the  Anglo-Normans  had 
recourse  to  acts  of  Parliament,  which  could  bind  not  only  the 
English  of  the  Pale,  but  also  those  of  other  districts,  who,  enjoy- 


154 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM, 


ing  the  privileges  of  English  law,  were  likewise  bound  by  its 
provisions. 

In  order  rightly  to  understand  the  need  and  purposes  of  those 
enactments,  we  must  return  a  moment  to  the  days  of  the 
conquest. 

The  case  of  Strongbow  will  illustrate  many  others.  He 
married  Eva,  the  daughter  of  McMurrough,  and  thus  allied  him- 
self to  the  best  families  of  Leinster.  On  the  death  of  his  father- 
in-law,  he  received  the  whole  kingdom  as  his  inheritance.  The 
greater  part  of  his  dominions,  which  he  either  would  not  or 
could  not  govern  himself,  he  was  compelled  to  distribute,  in  the 
usual  stvle,  among  his  followers.  He  distributed  large  estates  as 
fiefs  among  those  who  had  followed  his  fortunes,  but  he  could 
not  forget  his  Irish  relatives,  to  whom  he  had  become  strongly 
attached.  He  secured,  therefore,  to  many  Irish  families  the  terri- 
tory which  was  formerly  theirs,  and  many  of  his  English  adherents, 
who,  like  himself,  had  married  daughters  of  the  soil,  did  the  same 
in  their  more  limited  territories.  This  explains  fully  why  Irish 
families  remained  in  Leinster  after  the  settlement  of  the  Anglo- 
Normans  there,  who  established  their  Pale  in  it,  as  also  why  they 
continued  to  possess  their  lands  in  the  midst  of  the  English  as 
they  had  formerly  done  in  the  midst  of  the  Danes. 

The  same  thing  took  place  in  the  kingdom  of  Cork,  on  the 
borders  of  Connaught,  and  around  the  seaports  of  Ulster,  wher- 
ever the  English  had  established  themselves  and  erected  castles 
and  fortifications. 

But,  over  and  above  the  Irish  families,  which,  by  their  alliance 
by  marriage  and  fosterage  with  the  English,  retained  their  lands 
and  gradually  increased  them,  many  others,  natives  of  the  soil, 
reentered  into  possession  of  their  former  territory  by  the  with- 
drawal of  the  Anglo-Norman  holders  of  fiefs.  Constant  border 
wars,  the  necessary  consequence  of  the  English  policy,  could 
not  but  discourage  in  course  of  time  many  Englishmen,  who, 
owning  large  possessions  also  in  England  and  Wales,  preferred 
to  return  to  their  own  country  rather  than  remain  with  their 
wives  and  children  in  a  constant  state  of  alarm,  compelled  to  re- 
side within  their  castles,  in  dread  of  an  attack  at  any  moment 
from  their  Irish  neighbors. 

Moreover,  the  vast  majority  of  the  Irish,  who  did  not  enjoy 
the  benefit  of  these  special  privileges,  who,  deprived  of  their 
lands  at  the  first  invasion,  had  remained  really  outlaws,  and 
never  entered  into  matrimonial  or  social  alliance  with  their  ene- 
mies, these  men  could  not  consent  to  starve  and  perish  on  their 
own  soil,  in  the  island  which  they  loved  and  from  which  they 
could  not — had  they  so  chosen — escape  by  emigration.  One  re- 
source remained  to  them,  and  they  grasped  at  it.  They  had  their 
own  mountain  fastnesses  and  bogs  to  fly  to,  and  from  those 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


155 


recesses  they  could  harass  the  invader,  and  inch  by  inch  win  back 
their  lawful  inheritance. 

They  were  often  even  encouraged  in  their  attacks  and  depre- 
dations by  the  English  of  the  Pale  and  out  of  it,  who,  unwilling 
longer  to  submit  to  the  grinding  feudal  laws  and  exactions,  could 
prevent  the  English  judges,  sheriffs,  escheators,  and  other  king's 
officers  from  executing  the  law  against  them,  and  thus  they  held 
out  in  their  mountains,  bogs,  and  rocky  crags,  in  the  midst  of 
the  invaders  of  their  soil. 

A  necessity  arose  then,  on  the  part  of  the  English  rulers,  of 
adopting  measures  calculated  to  prevent  a  further  acquisition  of 
territory  by  the  Irish,  if  not  to  extend  the  English  settlements. 
They  saw  no  other  remedy  than  acts  of  Parliament,  which  they 
thought  would  at  least  prevent  the  subjects  of  English  blood  from 
assisting  the  Irish  to  reenter  into  possession,  as  was  then  being 
done  on  so  extensive  a  scale. 

To  effect  this  they  revived  the  former  statutes  by  which  the 
Irish  were  placed  without  the  protection  of  the  law,  were  de- 
clared aliens  and  enemies,  and  were  consequently  denied  the 
right  of  bringing  actions  in  any  of  the  English  courts  for  tres- 
passes on  their  lands,  or  for  violence  done  to  their  persons. 

They  soon  advanced  a  step  beyond  this.  The  Irish  were  for- 
bidden to  purchase  land,  though  the  English  were  at  liberty  to 
occupy  by  force  the  landed  property  of  the  Irish,  whenever  they 
were  strong  enough  to  do  so.  An  Irishman  could  acquire  neither 
by  gift  nor  purchase  a  rood  of  land  which  was  the  property  of  an 
Englishman.  Thus,  in  every  charter  afterward  granted  to  the  few 
Irishmen  who  applied  for  them,  it  was  expressly  stated  that  they 
could  purchase  land  for  themselves  and  their  heirs,  which,  with- 
out this  special  provision,  they  could  not  do ;  while  for  an 
Englishman  to  dispose  of  his  landed  property  by  will,  gift,  or  sale 
to  an  Irishman,  was  equivalent  to  forfeiting  his  estate  to  the 
crown.  The  officers  of  the  exchequer  were  directed  by  those  acts 
of  Parliament  to  hold  inquisitions  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  . 
returns  of  such  deeds  of  conveyance,  in  order  to  enrich  the  king's 
treasury  by  confiscations  and  forfeitures ;  and  the  statute-rolls, 
preserved  to  this  day  in  Dublin  and  London,  show  that  such  prose- 
cutions often  took  place,  with  the  invariable  result  of  forfeiture. 

The  decision  of  the  courts  was  always  in  favor  of  the  crown, 
even  in  cases  where  the  deed  of  conveyance  or  will  was  of  no 
benefit  to  the  person  in  whose  favor  it  was  drawn,  but  simply  a 
trust  for  a  third  person  of  English  race.  And  the  great  number 
of  cases  in  which  the  inquisitions  were  set  aside,  as  appears  from 
the  Parliament-rolls,  for  the  finding  having  been  malicious  and 
untrue — the  parties  complained  of  not  being  Irish  but  English — 
prove  what  we  allege,  namely,  that  an  Irishman  could  not  take 
land  by  conveyance  from  an  "Englishman. 


156 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


Yet,  as  Mr.  Prendergast  justly  says :  "  Notwithstanding  these 
prohibitions  and  laws  of  the  Irish  Parliament,  the  Irish  grew  and 
increased  upon  the  English,  and  the  Celtic  customs  overspread 
the  feudal,  until  at  length  the  administration  of  the  feudal  law 
was  confined  to  little  more  than  the  few  counties  lying  within 
the  line  of  the  Liffey  and  the  Boyne." 

Let  us  now  glance,  in  conclusion,  at  the  result  of  more  than 
four  centuries  of  feudal  oppression. 

Ireland  rejected  feudalism  from  the  beginning,  and  this  at 
a  time  when  Europe  had  been  compelled  to  adopt  it,  more  or 
less,  throughout. 

The  distinction  between  lords  and  villeins,  so  marked  in  all 
other  countries,  remained  at  the  end  as  it  was  at  the  beginning 
of  the  contest,  a  thing  unknown  in  the  island.  Even  in  the  Pale, 
the  presence  of  the  O'Moores,  O'Byrnes,  O'Kavanaghs,  and 
other  septs,  protested  against  and  openly  denied,  from  moor  and 
glen  and  mountain  fastness,  that  outrage  on  humanity,  which 
bestows  on  the  few  every  thing  meant  for  all.  The  Brehon  law 
was  in  full  force  all  over  the  island,  and  if  the  Irish  allowed  the 
English  judges  to  ride  on  their  circuits  within  the  four  counties, 
it  was  on  the  full  understanding  that  they  would  administer  their 
justice  only  to  English  subjects,  and  levy  their  feudal  dues,  and 
ronounce  their  forfeitures  and  confiscations  on  such  only  as  ac- 
nowledged  the  king's  right  on  the  premises.  The  laws  enacted 
in  the  pretended  Irish  Parliament  were  only  for  such  as  called 
themselves  English  by  birth ;  for  even  the  English  by  blood, 
whose  ancestors  had  long  resided  on  the  island,  frequently  re- 
fused to  submit  to  the  laws  of  Parliament,  where  they  would  not 
sit  themselves,  although  possessing  the  right  to  do  so. 

In  vain  was  the  threat  of  compulsion  held  up  again  and  again 
before  the  eyes  of  the  great  lords  of  Desmond,  Thomond,  and 
Connaught.  If  they  chose,  they  went ;  if  they  chose  not,  they 
remained  at  home ;  and  obeyed  or  disobeyed  at  will  the  laws 
themselves,  according  as  they  were  able  or  unable  to  set  them  at 
defiance. 

The  castles  which  had  been  built  all  over  the  country  by  the 
first  invaders,  as  a  means  of  awing  into  subjection  the  surround- 
ing districts,  were  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century  no  lon- 
ger feudal  castles.  They  had  either  been  destroyed  and  levelled  to 
the  ground  by  the  Irish,  or  they  were  occupied  by  Irish  chief- 
tains ;  or,  stranger  still,  if  their  holders  were  English  lords,  they 
were  of  those  who  had  been  won  over  to  Irish  manners.  In 
their  halls  all  the  old  customs  of  Erin  were  preserved.  One  saw 
therein  groups  of  shanachies,  and  harpers,  and  Brehon  lawyers, 
all  conversing  with  their  chieftain  in  the  primitive  language  of 
the  country.  Hence  were  they  called  degenerate  by  the  "  for- 
eigners" living  in  Dublin  Castle.    The  mansions  of  the  Des- 


CLANSHIP  AM)  FEUDALISM. 


157 


monds,  of  the  Burgos,  of  the  Ormonds,  were  the  headquarters 
of  their  respective  clans,  not  the  inaccessible  fortresses  of  steel- 
clad  warriors,  who  alone  were  possessed  of  social  and  civil  rights. 
If  the  master  of  the  household  held  sometimes  the  title  of  earl,  or 
count,  or  baron,  he  was  careful  never  to  use  it  before  his  retain- 
ers, whom  he  called  his  clansmen.  When  he  went  to  Dublin  or 
to  London,  he  donned  it  with  the  dress  of  a  knight  or  a  great 
feudal  lord ;  on  his  return  home  he  threw  it  aside,  resumed  the 
cloak  of  the  country,  and  was  Irish  again. 

The  subject  of  feudal  titles  in  Ireland  has  not  been  sufficiently 
studied  and  elucidated.  A  clearer  light  thrown  on  this  question 
would,  we  have  no  doubt,  show  more  conclusively  than  long  dis- 
cussions with  what  stubbornness  the  Irish  refused  to  submit  to  the 
reality  of  feudalism,  even  when  consenting  to  admit  its  presence 
and  phraseology.  It  is  a  fact  not  sufficiently  dwelt  upon,  that 
the  few  Irishmen,  who  subsequently  fomented  to  receive  English 
titles  from  the  king,  were  regarded  by  their  countrymen  with 
greater  abhorrence  than  the  English  themselves,  though  in  most 
cases  the  titles  were  empty  ones,  which  affected  nothing  in  their 
mode  of  life.  Yet  were  they  looked  upon  as  apostates  to  their 
nation,  and  after  the  Reformation  such  a  step  was  often  the  first 
to  apostasy  of  religion,  the  deepest  stain  on  an  Irish  name. 

Feudalism  had  also  its  mode  of  taxation  which  failed  with  the 
rest  in  Ireland. 

In  feudal  countries  the  lord  imposed  no  tax  on  his  villeins  ; 
these  were  mere  chattels,  ascripti  glebce,  who  tilled  the  land  for 
their  masters,  and,  as  good  serfs,  could  own  nothing  but  the  few 
utensils  of  their  miserable  hovels.  They  were  just  allowed  what 
sufficed  to  support  their  own  life  and  that  of  their  families,  and 
consequently  they  could  bear  no  additional  tax.  But,  in  the  com- 
plicated state  of  society  brought  about  by  feudalism,  the  inferior 
lord  was  taxed  by  his  superior,  a  system  that  ran  down  the  whole 
feudal  scale,  and  it  would  take  a  lawyer  to  explain  aids,  tal- 
liages,  wardships,  fines  for  alienation,  seizins,  rents,  escheats, 
and  finally  forfeiture,  the  heaviest  and  most  common  of  all  in 
England. 

The  Irish  fought  valiantly  against  the  imposition  of  those 
burdens,  and  aided  the  English  settled  among  them  to  repudi- 
ate them  all  in  course  of  time. 

It  must  be  said,  however,  that  they  did  not  succeed  in  pre- 
venting their  own  taxes,  according  to  the  Book  of  Eights,  from 
becoming  heavier  under  the  ingenuity  of  the  English  who  were 
established  among  them  and  admitted  to  all  the  rights  of  clan- 
ship. We  see  by  documents  which  have  been  better  studied  of 
late,  that  the  great  Anglo-Irish  lords  had  succeeded  in  increasing 
the  burdens  in  the  shape  of  exactions,  which  were  never  com- 
plained of  by  the  Irish. 


V 


158 


CLANSHIP  AND  FEUDALISM. 


On  this  subject  Dr.  O'Donovan,  in  the  preface  to  his  edition 
of  the  "  Book  of  Rights,"  is  worthy  of  perusal. 

But  it  is  chiefly  in  the  very  essence  of  feudalism  that  the  fail- 
ure of  the  Anglo-Normans  was  most  signal.  Feudalism  really 
consisted  in  the  status  given  to  the  land,  the  possession  of  which 
determined  and  gave  all  rights,  so  that,  according  to  it,  man  was 
made  for  the  land  rather  than  the  land  for  man.  He  was  placed 
on  the  land  with  the  beasts  of  the  field  as  far  as  tillage  and  pro- 
duction went,  until  the  system  should  round  to  perfection  and 
finally  bring  to  the  surface  the  new  principles  of  social  economy, 
according  to  which  the  greater  the  number  of  cattle  and  the  fewer 
the  number  of  men,  the  more  prosperous  and  happy  might  the 
country  be  said  to  be. 

The  Irish  staked  their  existence  against  those  principles,  and 
won.  So  complete  was  their  victory  that  the  feudal  barons  who 
first  came  among  them  finally  yielded  to  clanship,  became  the 
chiefs  of  new  clans,  and  opened  their  territories  to  all  who  chose 
to  send  their  horses  and  kine  to  graze  in  the  chief's  domains. 
In  vain  did  Irish  Parliaments  issue  writs  of  forfeiture  against  the 
English  lords  who  acted  thus,  for  between  the  law  and  its  execu- 
tion the  clans  intervened,  and  no  sheriff  or  judge  could  step 
beyond  the  bounds  of  the  four  counties  of  the  Pale  to  enforce 
those  acts. 

It  is  told  of  one  of  the  Irish  chieftains  that  on  receiving  inti- 
mation from  a  high  English  official  of  a  sheriff's  visit  on  the  next 
breach  of  some  new  law  or  ordinance,  for  the  safety  of  which 
sheriff  he  would  be  held  responsible,  he  replied :  "  1  on  will  do 
well  to  let  me  know  at  the  same  time  what  will  be  the  amount 
of  his  eric,  in  case  of  his  murder,  that  I  may  beforehand  assess  it 
on  the  clan." 

This  story  may  tend  better  than  any  thing  else  to  give  a  clear 
reason  for  the  failure  of  feudalism  in  Ireland. 


CHAPTEK  VII 


IRELAND  SEPARATED  FROM  EUROPE.  A  TRIPLE  EPISODE. 

While  the  struggle  described  in  the  last  chapter  was  ragmg, 
Ireland  conld  have  little  or  no  intercourse  with  the  rest  of 
Europe.  Heaven  alone  was  witness  of  the  heroism  displayed  by 
the  free  clans  wrestling  with  feudal  England.  It  was  only  dur- 
ing the  internecine  wars  of  the  Roses  that  Erin  enjoyed  a  res- 
pite, and  then  we  read  that  Margaret  of  Offaly  summoned  to 
peaceful  contest  the  bards  of  the  island,  while  the  shrines  of 
Rome  and  Compostella  were  thronged  with  pilgrims,  chiefs,  and 
princes,  "  paying  their  vows  of  faith  from  the  Western  Isle." 

In  the  mean  time  Christendom  had  been  witness  of  mighty 
events  in  which  Ireland  could  take  no  part.  The  enthusiastic 
impulse  which  gave  birth  to  the  Crusades,  the  uprising  of  the 
communes  against  feudal  thraldom,  the  mental  activity  of  numer- 
ous universities,  starting  each  day  into  life,  form,  among  other 
things,  the  three  great  progressive  waves  in  the  moving  ocean  of 
the  time  : 

I.  When  Europe  in  phalanx  of  steel  hurled  itself  upon  Asia  and 
saved  Christendom  from  the  yoke  of  Islam,  when  the  Japhetic 
race  by  a  mighty  effort  asserted  its  right  not  merely  to  exist- 
ence, but  to  a  preponderance  in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  Ireland, 
the  nation  Christian  of  Christians,  had  not  a  name  among  men. 
It  was  supposed  to  be  a  dependency  of  England,  and  the  envoys 
sent  abroad  to  all  parts  by  the  Holy  See  to  preach  the  Crusades, 
never  touched  her  shores  to  deliver  the  cross  to  her  warriors. 
The  most  chivalrous  nation  of  Christendom  was  altogether  for- 
gotten,  and  in  its  ecclesiastical  annals  no  mention  is  made  of 
the  Crusades  even  by  name. 

The  holy  wars,  moreover,  were  set  on  foot  and  carried  on  by 
the  feudal  chivalry  of  Europe,  and  in  fact,  wherever  the  Europeans 
established  their  power  in  the  East,  that  power  took  the  shape  of 
feudalism.  But  Ireland  had  rejected  this  system,  and  consequent- 
ly her  sons  could  find  no  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  knights  of  Flan- 
ders, Normandy,  Aquitaine,  and  England.   Their  chivalry  was  of 


160 


IRELAND  IX  THE  MEDDLE  AGES. 


another  stamp,  and  was  employed  at  the  time  in  wresting  their 
social  state  and  territory  from  the  grasp  of  rnthless  invaders. 

Hence,  not  even  St.  Bernard,  the  ardent  friend  of  St.  Malachi, 
remembered  them,  when  journeying  through  Europe  to  distribute 
the  Cross  to  whole  armies  of  warriors.  Not  onlv  did  he  fail  to 
cross  the  Channel  for  the  purpose  of  rousing  the  Christian  enthu- 
siasm of  a  people  ever  ready  to  hearken  to  a  call  to  arms  when  a 
noble  cause  was  at  stake ;  lie  did  not  think  even  of  writing  a  sin- 
gle letter  to  any  bishop  or  abbot  in  Ireland,  asking  them  to 
preach  the  holy  war  in  his  name. 

Thus  Ireland  failed  to  participate  in  any  of  the  benefits  which 
accrued  to  the  European  nations  from  the  Crusades,  as  she  failed 
likewise  to  participate  in  results  less  beneficial  which  also  accrued 
from  that  powerful  agitation. 

Among  such  results  is  one  which  has  not  met  with  all  the 
attention  it  deserves.  Historians  speak  at  length  of  the  many 
and  wide-spread  heresies  which  infected  Europe  during  the  mid- 
dle ages ;  but  their  Eastern  origin  has  not  been  thoroughly  inves- 
tigated, and  we  have  no  doubt  that,  if  it  had  been,  many  of  them 
would  be  found  to  have  come  with  a  returning  wave  of  the  Crusades. 

All  these  errors  bear  at  the  outset  a  very  Oriental  appearance. 
Paulicians,  Petrobrusians,  Albigensians,  and  kindred  sects,  all 
started  from  the  principle  of  dualism,  and  even  at  the  time 
were  openly  accused  of  Manicheistic  ideas.  They  all  involved 
more  or  less  immoral  principles,  and  rejected,  or  at  least  strove 
to  weaken,  the  commonly-received  ideas  upon  which  society, 
civil  and  religious,  is  founded.  Had  they  succeeded  in  spread- 
ing their  errors  through  Europe,  it  is  possible  that  the  invasion 
would  have  been  more  fatal  in  its  consequences  than  that  of 
Islamism  itself.  And,  even  in  their  failure,  they  left  among 
European  societies  the  germ  of  secret  associations  which  have 
existed  from  that  time  down,  and  which  in  our  davs  have  burst 
forth  undisguised  to  terrify  nations,  and  cause  them  to  dread 
the  coming  of  the  last  davs. 

To  an  attentive  observer  it  is  clear  that  the  heresies  of  the 
twelfth,  thirteenth,  and  fourteenth  centuries  resemble  more 
the  errors  of  our  days  than  the  Protestantism  which  intervened. 
Luther's  first  principles,  if  carried  to  their  legitimate  conclusion, 
would  have  inaugurated  the  socialism  and  communism  of  modern 
times  ;  but  he  shrank  from  the  consequences  of  his  own  doctrines, 
and  the  necessity  of  his  standing  well  with  the  German  princes 
caused  him,  during  the  War  of  the  Peasants,  almost  to  retract  his 
first  utterances  and  take  his  stand  midway  between  Catholic 
principles  and  the  thorough  nihilism  of  later  times.  It  is  known 
that  in  the  after-part  of  his  life  he  endeavored  to  repair  the  ruins 
of  every  dogma,  social  and  religious,  which  he  at  first  had  tried 
to  subvert  and  destroy. 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


161 


The  Manicheism  of  the  middle  ages  was  certainly  not  of  so 
scientific  and  elaborate  a  nature  as  modern  socialism ;  but  it 
would  have  been  productive  of  like  evil  results  to  society  had  it 
not  been  crushed  down  by  the  united  power  of  the  Church  and 
the  state.  If  it  had  been  successful,  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
what  would  have  become  of  Europe. 

Of  its  Eastern  origin  historians  say  little.  "We  know,  how- 
ever, that,  after  a  residence  in  the  East,  the  most  pious  Christians 
grew  lukewarm  and  less  firm  in  their  opposition  to  the  dangerous 
errors  then  prevalent  in  Asia.  Tournefort  remarked  this  in  his 
own  time,  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XIY. 

It  is  known  also  that  the  posterity  of  the  first  crusaders  in 
Palestine  formed  a  hybrid  race,  which,  weakened  by  the  influence 
of  the  luxurious  habits  of  Eastern  countries,  became  corrupt,  and 
under  the  name  of  Pulani  practised  a  feeble  Christianity,  unfit 
to  cope  with  the  vigorous  fanaticism  of  the  Mussulman.  Many 
Europeans  came  back  from  those  wars  wavering  in  faith,  and  no 
one  knows  how  many  with  faith  entirely  lost. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  too  much  to  suppose  that  the  Oriental 
errors  which  suddenly  burst  forth  at  this  time  in  Western  Europe 
followed  in  the  wake  of  the  returning  pilgrims,  and  it  is  highly 
probable,  if  not  absolutely  certain,  that,  had  there  been  no  Cru- 
sades, Manicheism  and  the  secret  societies  born  of  it  would  never 
have  been  known  in  Italy  and  France.  Hence,  one  of  the  first 
and  greatest  champions  of  the  Church  in  controversy  with  the 
Albigenses — Peter  the  Venerable,  Abbot  of  Cluny — at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  heresy,  found  no  better  means  of  opposing  the 
new  errors  than  attacking  every  thing  coming  from  the  East. 
Thus,  he  wrote  his  long  treatises  against  the  Talmud  and  the 
Koran,  so  much  had  the  Crusades  already  contributed  to  intro- 
ducing into  Western  Europe  the  seeds  of  Asiatic  errors.  All 
historians  agree  in  giving  an  Eastern  origin  to  the  Paulicians, 
Bulgarians,  Albigenses,  and  others  of  those  times. 

Manicheism  indeed  had  infested  Europe  long  before.  Some 
Roman  emperors  had  published  severe  edicts  against  it.  In  the 
fifth  century  the  heresy  still  flourished  in  Italy  and  Africa,  St. 
Augustine  himself  being  an  adept  for  several  years,  and  by  his 
writings  he  has  made  us  acquainted  with  its  strongest  supporters 
in  his  day.  He  was  followed,  in  his  attacks  on  it,  by  a  great  num- 
ber of  Fathers,  both  Greek  and  Latin. 

But  after  the  barbarian  invasions  we  hear  no  more  of  the 
Manichees  for  upward  of  five  hundred  years.  The  West  had 
entirely  forgotten  them.  Arianism  and  Manicheism  had  ap- 
parently perished  together.  The  tenth  century  is  called  a  period 
of  darkness  and  ignorance  ;  it  at  least  possessed  the  advan- 
tage of  being  free  from  heresy  ;  the  dogmas  of  the  Church 
were  unhesitatingly  and  universally  accepted.    Western  Europe, 


162 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MEDDLE  AGES. 


though  cut  up  by  the  new-born  feudalism  into  a  thousand  frag- 
ments, was  at  least  one  in  faith,  until  that  great  and  powerful 
union  having,  in  an  outburst  of  enthusiasm,  produced  the  Cru- 
sades, we  suddenly  find  Eastern  theories  and  immoralities  invad- 
ing the  countries  most  faithful  to  the  Church. 

Raymond  YL,  Count  of  Toulouse,  the  great  champion  ot 
the  Albigenses,  was  the  njear  descendant  of  that  great  Ray- 
mond, one  of  the  chiefs  of  the  first  Crusade,  who  might  have 
aspired  to  the  throne  of  Jerusalem,  had  not  Godfrey  de  Bouil- 
lon won  the  suffrages  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Cross  by  his  ardent 
and  pure  piety. 

Raymond  VI.  dwelt  in  Languedoc,  in  all  the  luxurious  splen- 
dor of  an  Eastern  emir ;  and  he  doubtless  found  the  doctrines 
of  dualistic  Manicheism  more  congenial  to  his  taste  for  pleasure 
than  the  stern  tenets  of  the  Christian  religion.  Ambition,  it  is 
true,  was  one  of  the  chief  motives  which  prompted  him  to  place 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  heretics  ;  he  hoped  to  enrich  himself 
through  them  by  the  spoils  of  the  Church ;  and  thus  the  same 
power  which  later  on  moved  the  German  princes  to  embrace 
Lutheranism  was  already  acting  on  the  aspiring  Count  of  Toulouse 
at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Thus  we  find  him 
at  the  head  of  his  troops,  plundering  churches,  ravaging  monas- 
teries, outraging  and  profaning  holy  things,  for  the  purpose  of 
filling  his  coffers. 

Yet  it  is  also  certain  that  he,  the  chief  of  the  sectarians, 
and  a  great  number  of  the  nobility  of  Southern  France,  were  led 
to  embrace  the  Albigensian  error  by  the  degrading  habits  which 
they  had  previously  contracted. 

We  do  not  purpose  entering  into  a  lengthened  discussion  on 
the  subject ;  we  merely  wish  to  contrast,  with  the  wide  spread  of 
heresy  in  Western  Europe,  the  great  fact  of  a  total  absence  of  it 
in  Ireland  ;  or  rather,  we  should  say,  and  by  so  saying  we  con- 
firm our  reflection,  that  errors  of  a  similar  nature  did  invade  the 
Pale  in  Erin  at  this  time,  without  touching  in  any  wise  the  chil- 
dren of  the  soil. 

For,  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  at  the  beginning  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  the  name  of  heresy  is  mentioned  for  the  first  and 
last  time  in  Catholic  Ireland ;  the  new  doctrines  bearing  a  close 
resemblance  to  some  of  the  errors  of  the  Albigenses,  and  their 
chief  propagators  being  all  lords  of  the  Pale. 

In  Kovember  of  1235,  Pope  Benedict  XII.  wrote  a  letter 
on  this  subject  to  Edward  III.  of  England,  which  may  be  read  in 
F.  Brenan's  Ecclesiastical  History. 

It  is  clear  from  many  things  related  by  Ware  in  his  "Antiqui- 
ties "  that  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  unable  to  follow  freely  his  inclina- 
tions with  respect  to  the  filling  of  the  sees  of  Erin,  and  obliged 
to  appoint  to  bishoprics,  at  least  in  many  parts  of  the  island,  only 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


163 


men  of  English  birth,  selected  for  that  purpose  members  of  the 
various  religious  orders  then  existing.  Instead  of  granting  epis- 
copal jurisdiction  to  the  feudal  nominees  of  the  court,  when 
unworthy*  Home  appointed  a  Franciscan,  or  a  Dominican,  a 
member  of  some  religious  community,  who  was  born  in  England, 
but  at  least  more  independent  of  the  court,  of  greater  sympathy 
with  the  people,  less  swayed  by  worldly  and  selfish  motives,  and 
consequently  readier  to  obey  the  mandates  of  Rome,  which  were 
always  on  the  side  of  justice  and  morality.  Thus  we  find  that  in 
the  whole  history  of  Ireland,  as  a  general  rule,  the  bishops  chosen 
from  religious  orders  were  acceptable  to  the  people,  and  true  to 
their  duty. 

Such  a  man  certainly  was  Richard  Ledred,  a  Minorite,  born 
in  London,  whom  the  Pope  made  Bishop  of  Ossory.  But  on  that 
very  account  he  incurred  the  hatred  of  many  English  officials, 
and  even  of  worldly  prelates,  among  whom  Alexander  Bicknor, 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  was  the  most  conspicuous.  Bicknor  was 
not  only  archbishop,  but  had  been  appointed  Lord  Justice  of 
Ireland  by  the  king,  and  later  on  Lord  Deputy ;  later  still  he 
was  dispatched  by  the  English  Parliament  as  ambassador  to 
France. 

"It  had  been  well,"  says  F.  Brenan,  "for  the  archbishop 
himself,  and  for  those  immediately  under  his  jurisdiction,  had  he 
abstained  from  mixing  himself  up  with  the  state  affairs  of  those 
times.  Ambition  formed  no  inferior  trait  in  the  character  of 
Alexander,  even  long  before  he  had  been  exalted  to  a  high 
dignity  in  the  Church.  He  advanced  rapidly  into  power,  step- 
ping from  one  office  into  another,  until  at  length  he  found  him- 
self in  the  midst  of  the  labyrinth,  without  being  able  to  make 
his  way,  unless  by  means  of  guides  as  inexperienced  as  they 
were  treacherous.  It  was  by  causes  such  as  these  that  he  brought 
himself  into  serious  difficulties,  not  only  with  the  Archbishop  of 
Armagh,  on  account  of  the  primacy,  but  also  with  his  own  suf- 
fragans, and  particularly  with  the  Bishop  of  Ossory." 

Under  these  circumstances  it  was  that  the  prelate  last  men- 
tioned, on  visiting  his  diocese,  found  unmistakable  signs  of  the 
spread  of  heresy  among  his  flock.  His  diocese  at  that  time 
formed  a  part  of  the  English  Pale,  and  Kilkenny,  where  he  had 
his  cathedral,  was  often  the  seat  of  Parliament. 

Among  those  most  active  for  the  propagation  of  the  new 
doctrines  were  found,  the  Seneschal  of  Kilkenny,  the  Treasurer 
of  Ireland,  and  the  Chief-Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas — all 
English  of  the  Pale.  The  zealous  bishop,  fearless  of  the  conse- 
quences, openly  denounced  them,  and  publicly  excommunicated 
the  Treasurer.  At  once  a  terrible  storm  was  raised  among  their 
English  abettors,  and,  in  order  to  screen  the  guilty  parties,  they 
recriminated  against  the  prelate,  and  accused  him  of  being  a 


IRELAND  m  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


sharer  in  the  crime  of  Thomas  Fitzgilbert,  who  had  burned  the 
castle  of  Moy  Cahir,  and  killed  its  owner,  Hugh  Le  Poer.  The 
temporalities  of  Ledred  having  been  already  sequestrated  for  his 
boldness  in  denouncing  heretics,  he  was  compelled  finally  to 
leave  his  diocese  and  fly  to  Avignon,  where  he  remained  in  exile 
for  nine  years. 

The  Archbishop  of  Dublin  had  been  one  of  his  bitterest  ene- 
mies, and,  although  not  actually  accused  of  heresy  himself,  he  was 
certainly  the  abettor  of  heretics,  and  had  done  all  in  his  power 
to  have  Ledred  arrested  for  his  supposed  crimes. 

Ware,  in  his  lives  of  Bicknor  and  Ledred,  is  evidently  a  par- 
tisan of  the  first  and  an  enemy  of  the  second.  He  pretends  that 
Ledred  tacitly  acknowledged  his  guilt  in  the  affair  of  Le  Poer, 
since  he  sued  for  pardon  to  the  king,  as  though  readers  of  Eng- 
lish history  did  not  constantly  meet  with  instances  of  innocent 
men  compelled  to  sue  for  pardon  of  crimes  which  they  had  never 
committed. 

We  have  fortunately  better  judges  of  the  characters  of  both 
prelates  in  the  two  popes,  Benedict  XII.  and  Clement  VI. :  the 
first  believing  in  the  existence  of  the  heresy  denounced  by 
Ledred ;  the  second  exempting  the  Bishop  of  Ossory  from  the 
superior  jurisdiction  of  Bicknor,  on  account  of  the  unjust 
animosity  displayed  toward  him  by  this  worldly  prelate. 

The  absence  of  all  historical  documents  in  reference  to  the 
case  leaves  us  at  a  loss  to  know  the  effect  produced  on  Edward  III. 
by  the  letter  of  the  Pontiff.  It  is  highly  probable  that  the  king 
preferred  to  believe  Bicknor  rather  than  the  Pope,  and  disre- 
garded the  advice  of  the  latter. 

In  such  an  event,  how  was  the  heresy  put  down  ?  Simply  by 
the  good  sense  and  spirit  of  faith  of  the  people,  or  rather  by  the 
deep  Christian  feeling  of  the  native  Irish,  who  were  always 
opposed  to  innovation,  and  who  remained  firm  in  the  traditional 
belief  inherent  in  the  nation  by  the  grace  of  God.  Schism  and 
heresy  seem  impossible  among  the  children  of  Erin.  If  at  any 
time  certain  novelties  have  appeared  among  them,  they  have 
speedily  vanished  like  empty  vapor.  They  heard  that,  in  other 
parts  of  the  Church,  in  the  East  chiefly,  heresiarchs  had  arisen 
and  led  away  into  error  large  numbers  of  people  forming  some- 
times formidable  sects,  which  threatened  the  very  existence  of 
the  religion  of  Christ ;  but  the  face  of  a  heretic  they  had  never 
beheld.  Soon,  indeed,  they  were  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  whole 
swarm  of  them,  to  see  a  pretended  church  leagued  with  the  state 
to  bring  about  their  perversion  ;  but  as  yet  they  had  had  no  ex- 
perience of  the  kind. 

Only  a  few  heretics  were  pointed  out  to  them  by  the  finger 
of  one  of  their  bishops,  and  his  denunciations  were  confirmed  by 
the  judgment  of  the  Holy  See.    Hence,  according  to  F.  Brenan, 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


165 


"  the  sensation  which  pervaded  all  classes  became  vehement  and 
frightful.  The  bishop  and  his  clergy  came  forward,  and  by  solid 
argument,  by  the  strength  and  power  of  truth,  opposed  and  dis- 
comfited the  enemies  of  religion." 

The  feeling  here  expressed  is  a  natural  one  for  a  true  Chris- 
tian at  the  very  mention  of  heresy.  Yet  how  few  nations  have 
experienced  a  sensation  "  vehement  and  frightful "  at  the  ap- 
pearance of  positive  error  among  them  !  But,  at  all  periods  of 
their  history,  such  has  been  the  feeling  of  the  Irish  people. 

Fortunately  for  them,  the  number  of  sectarians  was  so  small 
as  to  become  insignificant ;  the  English  of  the  Pale  were  always 
few  in  comparison  with  the  natives,  and  heresy  had  been  adopted 
by  only  a  small  body. 

Error,  therefore,  could  not  cause  in  the  island  the  social  and 
political  convulsions  which  it  had  produced  in  France  about  the 
same  time.  There  was  no  need  of  a  second  Albigensian  war  to 
put  it  down.  There  was  no  need  even  of  the  Inquisition,  as  an 
ecclesiastical  tribunal.  The  sentence  of  the  bishop,  the  decree  of 
excommunication  pronounced  from  the  foot  of  the  altar,  was  all 
that  was  required. 

When  we  compare  this  single  fact  of  Irish  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory with  what  was  then  transpiring  in  Europe — the  most 
insidious  errors  spreading  throughout ;  the  faith  of  many  becom- 
ing unsettled,  a  general  preparation  for  the  social  deluge  which 
was  impending  and  so  soon  to  fall — we  cannot  but  conclude  that 
Ireland,  in  the  midst  of  her  misfortunes,  was  happy  in  being  sep- 
arated from  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  breath  of  novelty  could 
breathe  no  contagion  on  her  shores.  Happy  even  was  she  in  not 
seeing  her  sons  enlist  in  the  army  of  the  Cross,  if  the  result  of 
their  victories  was,  to  bring  back  from  the  Holy  Land  the  Eastern 
corruption  and  the  many  heresies  nestling  there  and  settled,  even 
around  the  sepulchre  of  our  Lord,  during  so  many  ages  of  separa- 
tion from  the  West  and  open  communication  with  all  the  wild 
vagaries  of  Arabian,  Persian,  and  Indian  philosophies. 

Even  in  the  midst  of  such  a  trial  we  believe  that  Ireland 
would  have  held  steadfast  to  her  faith,  as  she  did  later  on  when 
heresy  came  to  her  with  compulsion  or  death  ;  and  this  firmness 
of  purpose,  which  the  Irish  have  always  manifested  when  the 
question  was  a  change  of  religion,  is  worthy  our  consideration. 
For  the  facility  with  which  some  nations  have,  in  the  course  of 
ages,  yielded  to  the  spirit  of  novelty,  and  the  sturdy  resistance 
opposed  to  it  by  others,  is  a  subject  that  would  repay  investiga- 
tion, but  which  we  can  only  slightly  touch  upon. 

In  ancient  times  the  Greek  mind,  accustomed  from  the  begin- 
ning to  subtlety  of  argument,  and  easily  carried  away  by  a  ration- 
alism which  was  innate,  offers  a  striking  contrast  to  the  steady 
traditional  spirit  of  the  Latin  races  in  general.    Except  Pelagian- 


166 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


ism  and  its  cognate  errors,  all  the  great  heresies  which  afflicted 
the  Church  during  the  first  ten  centuries,  originated  in  the  East ; 
and  the  various  sects  catalogued  by  several  of  the  Greek  Fathers, 
as  early  as  the  second  and  third  centuries,  astonish  the  modern 
reader  by  the  slender  web  on  which  their  often  ridiculous  sys- 
tems are  spun,  of  texture  strong  enough,  however,  at  the  time 
to  form  the  groundwork  for  making  a  disastrous  impression  on  a 
large  number  of  adherents.  The  infinity  almost  of  philosophical 
systems  in  pagan  Greece  had  prepared  the  way  for  the  subse- 
quent vagaries  of  heresy,  and  we  must  look  to  our  own  times,  so 
prolific  of  absurd  theories,  in  order  to  find  a  parallel  to  the  incred- 
ible variety  of  dogmatic  assertions  among  the  Greek  heresiarchs 
of  early  times. 

But,  at  the  outbreak  of  Protestantism,  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
the  world  witnessed  a  still  more  striking  example  of  diversity  in 
the  various  branches  of  the  Japhetic  family — the  nations  belonging 
to  the  Teutonic  and  Scandinavian  stocks  chiefly  embracing  the 
error  at  once  with  a  wonderful  spontaneity.  The  various  rem- 
nants of  the  Celtic  race  and  the  totality  of  the  Latin  nations  re- 
mained, on  the  whole,  obedient  to  the  guiding  voice  of  the  Church 
of  Christ.  It  is  customary  with  modern  writers,  when  imbued 
with  what  are  called  liberal  ideas,  to  ascribe  this  difference  to  the 
steady,  systematic  mind  of  northern  nations,  and  to  their  innate 
love  of  liberty,  which  could  not  brook  the  yoke  of  spiritual  des- 
potism imposed  by  the  Church  of  Home.  But  all  this  is  mere 
supposition,  inadequate  to  accounting  for  the  fact.  The  Teutonic 
and  Scandinavian  mind  is  certainly  more  systematic  and  ap- 
parently more  steady  than  the  Celtic  ;  but  it  is  far  less  so  than 
the  Latin.  No  nation  in  the  whole  history  of  mankind  has  ever 
displayed  more  steadiness  and  system  than  the  Romans,  and  the 
Latin  family  has  inherited  those  characteristics  from  Rome.  The 
Spanish  race  has  no  equal  in  steadiness  (in  the  sense  here  in- 
tended of  steadfastness),  and  the  French  certainly  none  in  system, 
which  it  often  carried  to  the  verge  of  absurdity. 

As  for  love  of  liberty,  as  distinct  from  love  of  license,  it  had 
absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  great  revolution  which  has 
been  called  the  Reformation.  ~No  nation  can  relish  despotism, 
and  the  whole  history  of  Ireland  is  a  living  example  that  her 
sons  are  steadily  opposed  to  it  to  the  death.  And  it  is  now  too 
late  to  pretend  that  the  cause  of  true  liberty  has  been  served  by 
the  spread  of  Protestantism  over  a  large  portion  of  Europe. 
Balmez  and  others  have  proved  the  falsehood  of  such  pretensions. 
If  any  modern  writers,  such  as  Mr.  Bancroft,  for  instance,  men 
otherwise  of  sound  mind  and  great  ability,  continue  to  assert 
this,  the  assertion  must  proceed  from  prejudice  deeply  ingrained, 
which  reflection  has  not  yet  succeeded  in  eradicating,  and  their 
opinions  on  the  subject  are  cecessarily  confined  to  bold  asser- 


IRELAND  EST  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


167 


tions,  of  a  character  which  in  others  they  themselves  would  stig- 
matize as  empty  and  unfounded. 

The  reason  of  the  difference  lies  deeper  in  the  constitution  of 
the  human  mind,  in  the  Celtic  and  Latin  races  on  the  one  side, 
in  the  Teutonic  and  Scandinavian  families  on  the  other.  Any 
one  who  has  studied  the  Irish  character  in  our  days — a  character 
which  was  the  same  in  former  ages — will  easily  see  something  of 
that  great  and  happy  cause. 

The  difference  lies  first  in  the  good  sense  which  enables  them 
to  perceive  instinctively  that  the  eternal  should  be  preferred  to 
the  temporal.  If  all  men  kept  that  distinct  perception  ever 
present  to  their  minds,  they  would  not  only  accept  at  all  times 
the  truths  of  faith,  since  faith,  according  to  St.  Paul,  is  "  the  sub- 
stance of  the  things  hoped  for,"  but  they  would  remain  ever 
faithful  to  the  moral  code  given  us  by  God.  The  Celt  indeed 
will  at  times  lose  sight  of  the  eternal  in  the  presence  of  a  tem- 
poral temptation  ;  but  he  is  never  blind  to  the  knowledge  that 
faith  is  the  groundwork  of  salvation,  and  that  hope  remains  as 
long  as  that  is  not  surrendered.  Therefore  he  will  never  surren- 
der it.  The  need  of  reviving  his  faith  is  rarely  called  for,  when, 
after  a  life  of  sin,  the  shadow  of  death  reminds  him  of  the  duty  he 
owes  his  own  soul.  The  great  truth  that,  after  all,  the  Eternal 
is  every  thing,  remains  always  deeply  impressed  on  his  mind  ;  and 
half  his  labor  is  spared  to  the  minister  of  God,  when  bringing 
such  a  man  back  to  a  life  of  virtue.  There  is  scarcely  any  need 
of  asking  an  Irishman,  "  Do  you  believe  \ 99  For,  every  word  that 
passes  his  lips,  every  look  and  gesture,  every  expression  of  feel- 
ing, is  in  fact  an  act  of  faith.  How  easy  after  this  is  the  work  of 
regeneration  ! 

O  happy  race,  to  whom  this  life  is  in  truth  a  shadow  that 
passeth  away !  to  whom  the  unseen  is  ever  present,  or  comes 
back  so  vividly  and  so  readily  ! 

This  supposes,  as  we  have  said,  a  sound,  good  sense,  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  race.  We  may  say  that  this  nation  possesses 
the  wisdom  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  who  esteemed  it  folly  to  lose 
eternity  for  a  life  of  twenty  years  of  ease  and  honors.  Is  not 
this,  at  bottom,  the  thought  which  has  sustained  the  nation  in 
that  dread  martyrdom  of  three  centuries,  whose  terrible  story  we 
have  still  to  tell  \  Have  they  not,  as  a  nation,  one  after  another, 
generation  upon  generation,  lived  and  passed  their  lives  in  con- 
tempt, in  want,  in  frightful  misery,  to  die  in  torments  or  hidden 
sufferings,  without  a  gleam  of  hope  from  this  world  for  their 
race,  their  families,  their  children,  their  very  name,  because  they 
would  not  surrender  their  religion,  that  is  to  say,  truth,  which 
alone  could  secure  the  eternal  welfare  of  their  souls  ? 

Speak  to  us,  after  this,  of  a  steady  and  systematic  mind ! 
Prate  to  us  of  the  love  of  liberty,  of  self- dignity  !    Where  are 


168 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


such  tilings  to  be  found  in  their  reality,  on  their  trial,  if  not  in 

the  scenes  and  the  nation  we  have  just  pictured  ? 

A  second  reason,  no  less  effective,  perhaps,  than  the  first,  and 
certainly  as  remarkable,  is  the  very  composition  of  the  Celtic 
mind,  which  naturally  tends  to  firm  belief,  because  it  is  given 
exclusively  to  traditions,  past  events,  narratives  of  poets,  histo- 
rians, and  genealogists.  Had  the  Irish  at  any  time  turned  them- 
selves to  criticise,  to  doubt,  to  argue,  their  very  existence,  as  a 
people,  would  have  ceased.  They  must  go  on  believing,  or  all 
reality  vanishes  from  their  minds,  accustomed  for  so  many  ages 
to  take  in  that  solid  knowledge  founded,  it  is  true,  on  hear.- 
but  how  else  can  truth  reach  us  save  by  hearsay  ?  Hence,  their 
simple  and  artless  acquiescence  in  any  thing  they  hear  from 
trustworthy  lips — acquiescence  ever  refused  to  a  known  enemy, 
never  to  a  well-tried  friend,  even  when  the  facts  ascertained  are 
strange,  mysterious,  unaccounted  for,  and  incredible  to  minds 
differently  constituted. 

Thus,  when  we  read  their  "Acta  Sanctorum  "  we  at  once  find 
ourselves  in  a  world  so  different  from  our  every-day  world — 
a  region  of  wonders,  mysteries,  of  heavenly  and  supernatural 
deeds,  unequalled  in  any  story  of  marvellous  travel  or  fable 
of  imaginative  romance.  Yet,  who  will  say  that  the  writers 
doubted  a  single  phrase  of  what  they  wrote  ?  Is  it  not  clear, 
from  the  very  words  they  use,  that  they  would  have  held  it  sac- 
rilege to  utter  a  falsehood,  when  speaking  of  the  blessed  saints  ? 
And,  can  the  lives  of  the  saints  be  like  those  of  common  mortals  ? 
What  is  there  strange  in  considering  that  the  earth  was  mys- 
terious and  heavenly,  when  heavenly  beings  walked  upon  it  ? 
Read  the  Litany  and  Festology  of  JEngus,  and  doubt  if  the  holy 
man  did  not  believe  all  therein  contained.  Say,  if  it  can  be  pos- 
sible, that  it  is  not  all  true,  though  apparently  incredible.  Who 
can  doubt  what  is  asserted  with  such  vehemence  of  belief?  How 
can  that  fail  to  be  true  which  holv  men  and  women  have  them- 
selves  believed,  and  given  to  the  world  to  be  believed  % 

This  thoroughly  explains  the  simplicity  of  faith  which  still 
distinguishes  the  Irish  people.  It  explains  why  no  heretic  could 
be  found  among  them,  and  their  intense  horror  of  heresy  as  soon 
as  known.  Nor  is  it  their  mind  alone  which  bears  the  impress 
of  faith  :  their  very  exterior  is  a  witness  to  it.  Go  into  any 
large  city  where  dwell  a  number  of  Irish  inhabitants ;  walk 
through  the  public  streets,  where  they  walk  among  the  children 
of  other  races,  and  you  will  easily  distinguish  them,  not  only  by 
the  modesty  of  their  women  and  the  simple  bearing  of  their  men, 
but  by  the  look  of  confidence  and  contentedness  stamped  on  their 
features.  Whoever  has  a  settled  faith,  is  no  longer  an  inquirer, 
no  longer  troubled  with  the  anxiety  and  restlessness  of  a  man 
plunged  in  doubt  and  uncertainty  ;  all  the  lineaments  of  the 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


169 


face,  all  the  gestures  and  attitudes  of  the  body,  speak  of  quietude 
and  repose. 

We  might  render  this  discussion  more  effective  by  the  study 
of  the  contrary  phenomena,  by  showing  how  easily  races,  differ- 
ently gifted,  endowed  with  the  spirit  of  criticism  and  argument, 
sever  from  the  faith  and  follow  the  lead  of  deceptive  teachers. 
Our  object  here  was  to  describe  the  Irish,  and  not  to  enter  into 
a  study  of  the  physiology  of  other  minds ;  but  a  word  on  Ger- 
manic and  Scandinavian  tribes  and  peoples  may  not  be  amiss. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  these  races  place  their  "  good  sense  " 
in  a  very  different  line  from  the  Irish  ;  that  they  are,  also,  much 
more  given  to  criticism,  what  they  call  "grumbling,"  and  ab- 
sence of  repose. 

With,  regard  to  the  first  point — their  "  good  sense  " — it  is 
easy  to  remark  their  tendency  to  prefer  the  temporal  to  the  eter- 
nal. For  their  "good  sense  "  consists  in  enjoying  the  things  of 
this  life  without  troubling  themselves  over-much  about  another. 
And,  in  this  observation,  there  is  nothing  which  can  possibly 
offend  them,  for  such  is  their  open  profession  and  estimate  of 
true  wisdom.  Hence  result  their  love  of  comfort,  their  thrift, 
their  shrewdness  in  all  material  and  worldly  affairs ;  hence, 
their  constant  boasting  about  their  civilization,  understanding, 
thereby,  what  is  pleasing  to  the  senses ;  hence,  also,  their  success 
in  a  life  wherein  they  set  their  whole  happiness.  How  could 
they  be  expected  to  remain  steadfast  to  a  faith  which  declares 
war  to  pleasure,  and  speaks  only  of  contempt  for  this  world  ?  It 
is  not  matter  of  surprise,  then,  that  their  great  argument,  to  prove 
that  theirs  is  the  better  and  the  right  religion,  is  to  compare 
their  physical  well-being  with  the  inferiority  in  that  regard  of 
Catholic  nations. 

With  regard  to  the  spirit  of  criticism  and  argumentation, 
nothing  is  so  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  faith  ;  and  it  is  as  clear  as 
day  that  the  northern  races  possess  this  in  an  eminent  degree. 
What  question,  religious  or  philosophical,  can  rest  intact  when 
brought  under  the  microscopic  vision  of  a  German  philosopher 
or  an  English  rationalist  ?  A  few  years  more  of  criticism,  as  now 
understood  and  practised  by  them,  would  leave  absolutely  noth- 
ing which  the  mind  of  man  could  respect  and  believe. 

An  attentive  observer  will  surely  conclude,  after  a  serious  ex- 
amination of  the  subject,  that  it  is  from  petty  causes  of  this 
character  that  these  races  have  so  easily  surrendered  their  faith, 
rather  than  from  their  systematic  minds  and  love  of  liberty. 

II.  The  rising  of  the  communes,  one  of  the  greatest  features 
of  medieeval  Europe,  did  not  extend  to  Ireland,  separated  as  it- 
then  was  from  the  Continent.  But,  by  reason  of  this  very  sepa- 
ration, the  island  remained  forever  free  from  the  future  political 
commotions  of  what  is  known  as  "  the  third  estate."    A  few  re- 


170 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


marks  on  this  subject  are  requisite,  because  of  the  objection 
brought  against  the  Irish,  that  they  have  never  known  muni- 
cipal government,  and  also  on  account  of  the  false  assertions  of 
some  philosophical  historians,  who  allege  that  the  Danes  and 
Anglo-Normans,  in  turn,  wrought  a  great  good  to  Ireland  by 
bringing  with  them  the  boon  of  citizen  rights. 

What  were  the  causes  of  the  rising  of  the  communes  in  the 
eleventh  and  following  centuries  ?  The  universality  of  the  fact 
argues  identity  of  motives,  since,  without  common  understanding 
among  various  nations,  the  risings  showed  themselves  at  about 
the  same  time  in  Italy,  France,  Germany,  Spain,  and  England. 

In  ancient  cities,  which  existed  prior  to  the  Germanic  inva- 
sions, the  population,  after  the  scourge  had  passed,  was  composed 
principally  of  three  elements  :  1.  Free  men  of  the  conquering 
races,  who  were  poor,  and  had  embraced  some  mechanical  pur- 
suit ;  2.  The  remnants  of  the  Roman  population,  who  followed 
some  trade ;  3.  Freedmen  from  the  rural  districts,  who,  unable 
to  gain  a  livelihood  in  the  country,  had  come  to  reside  in  the 
cities,  where  they  could  more  easily  subsist. 

Thus,  besides  the  feudal  lords  and  the  class  of  villeins,  there 
was  formed  everywhere  a  third  class,  that  of  arts  and  trades. 

The  juridical  power  being  restricted  to  the  lords,  whose 
rights  extended  only  to  the  land  and  the  men  attached  to  it, 
the  class  of  artisans  found  themselves  destitute  of  legal  rights, 
without  a  recognition  or  place  even  in  the  jurisprudence,  as  then 
existing,  consequently  in  a  practically  anarchical  state.  Hence, 
they  formed  among  themselves  their  own  associations,  elected 
their  own  magistrates,  enacted  their  own  by-laws. 

In  the  cities  we  have  mentioned,  the  bishop  alone  held  social 
relations  with  the  lords,  whether  the  feudal  chieftain  of  the 
vicinity,  or  the  Count  of  the  city.  Thus,  the  bishop  often  acted 
as  the  mediator  between  the  citizens  and  the  privileged  class 
which  surrounded  them.  The  great  object  of  the  citizens  was  to 
obtain  a  charter  of  rights  from  the  suzerain,  who  alone  could  act 
with  justice  and  impartiality  toward  those  disfranchised  burghers. 
To  this  was  owed  the  immense  number  of  charters  granted  at 
that  time,  many  of  which,  lately  published,  tend  better  than  any 
thing  else  to  give  us  an  insight  into  the  origin  of  municipal  life 
in  mediaeval  Europe. 

New  cities,  either  founded  by  the  invaders  or  springing  up 
of  themselves  around  feudal  castles  and  monasteries,  soon  experi- 
enced the  necessity  of  similar  favors,  which,  as  soon  as  obtained, 
invested  them  with  a  social  status  unenjoyed  before. 

The  number  of  freemen,  reduced  to  poverty,  or  of  recent 
freedmen — freed  by  the  emancipation  everywhere  set  on  foot 
and  encouraged  by  the  Church — extended  the  spread  of  com- 
munes even  to  the  rural  districts.    Thus,  many  villages  or  small 


IEELAKD  m  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


171 


towns  grew  into  corporations,  and  a  social  state  arose,  hitherto 


The  question  has  been  much  discussed,  whether  those  new 
municipal  corporations  owed  their  origin  to  the  municipal  sys- 
tem of  the  Romans,  or  were  altogether  disconnected  with  it. 
The  opinion  commonly  now  accepted  is,  that  the  two  systems 
were  utterly  distinct.  In  some  few  instances,  a  particular  Ro- 
man municipal  city  may  have  passed  into  a  mediaeval  corporate 
town  under  a  new  charter  and  with  extended  rights ;  but  this 
was  certainly  the  exception.  In  the  great  majority  of  cases,  the 
newly-chartered  cities  had  never  before  enjoyed  municipal  rights. 

These  few  words  suffice  to  show  that  the  communes,  wher- 
ever they  arose,  presupposed  the  existence  of  feudalism,  and  the 
slavery  once  so  widely  extended,  passing  gradually  into  serfdom. 

But  neither  feudalism  nor  slavery,  in  the  old  pagan  sense  of 
the  word,  nor  even  serfdom,  properly  so  called,  as  the  doom  of 
the  ascripti  glebce,  ever  existed  in  Ireland.  There  was,  there- 
fore, no  need  among  the  Irish  for  the  rising  of  communes. 

Nevertheless,  we  do  find  communes  existing  in  Ireland  and 
charters  granted  to  Irish  cities  by  English  kings.  But  they  were 
merely  English  institutions  for  the  special  benefit  of  the  English 
of  the  Pale,  which  were  always  refused  to  "  the  Irish  enemy,"  and 
which  the  "  Irish  enemy,"  with  the  exception  of  a  few  individual 
cases,  never  demanded.  Consequently  the  fact  stands  almost 
universally  true  that  the  rising  of  the  communes  never  extended 
to  Ireland,  and  that,  if  the  Irish  never  enjoyed  the  benefit  of 
them,  as  little  did  they  share  in  the  evil  consequences  resulting 
from  them. 

All  those  evil  consequences  had  their  root  in  a  feeling  of  bit- 
ter hostility  between  the  higher  or  noble  classes,  and  not  only  the 
villeins,  whom  they  ground  between  them,  but  also  the  middle 
classes,  who  were  dwelling  in  the  cities,  emancipating  themselves 
by  slow  degrees,  and  forming  in  course  of  time  the  "  third 
estate." 

The  workings  of  that  hostility  form  a  great  part  of  the  history 
of  Europe  from  the  twelfth  century  down  to  the  present  day, 
and  many  social  convulsions,  recorded  in  the  annals  of  the  six 
ages  preceding  our  own,  may  be  traced  to  it.  The  frightful 
.French  Revolution  was  certainly  a  result  of  it,  although  it  must 
be  granted  that  several  secondary  causes  contributed  to  render 
the  catastrophe  more  destructive,  the  chief  among  which  was  the 
spread  of  infidel  doctrines  among  the  higher  and  middle  classes. 

But  our  days  witness  a  still  more  awful  spectacle,  the  persist- 
ent array  of  the  poor  against  the  rich  in  all  countries  once  Chris- 
tian, and  this  may  be  traced  directly  to  their  mediaeval  origin  now 
under  our  consideration ;  and,  the  evils  preparing  for  mankind 
therefrom,  future  history  alone  will  be  able  to  tell. 


IT2 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


In  Ireland,  this  has  never  been  the  danger.  In  the  earlier 
constitution  of  the  nation,  there  could  be  no  rivalry,  no  hostility 
of  class  with  class,  as  there  never  existed  any  social  distinction 
between  them  ;  and  if,  in  our  days,  the  poor  there  as  elsewhere 
seem  arrayed  against  the  rich,  it  is  not  as  class  against  class, 
but  as  the  spoiled  against  the  spoiler,  the  victim  against  the  rob- 
ber, against  the  holders  of  the  soil  by  right  of  confiscation — a  soil 
upon  which  the  old  owners  still  live,  with  all  the  traditions  of 
their  history,  which  have  never  been  completely  effaced,  and 
which  in  our  days  are  springing  into  new  life  under  the  studies 
of  patriotic  antiquarians.    This  fact  cannot  be  denied. 

The  case  of  Ireland  is  so  different  in  this  respect  from  that  of 
other  nations,  that  in  no  other  country  have  the  people  been  re- 
duced to  such  a  degrading  state  of  pauperism,  yet  in  no  other 
country  is  the  same  submission  to  the  existing  order  of  society 
found  among  the  lower  classes.  Xo  communism,  no  socialism 
has  ever  been  preached  there,  and,  were  it  preached,  it  would 
only  be  to  deaf  ears.  Until  the  last  two  or  three  centuries,  no 
seed  of  animosity  between  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  had  been 
sowed  in  Ireland.  The  reason  of  this  we  have  seen  in  a  previous 
chapter.  And  if,  since  the  wholesale  confiscations  of  the  seven- 
teenth centurv,  the  country  has  been  divided  into  two  hostile 
camps,  the  fault  has  never  laid  with  the  poor,  the  despoiled ;  they 
have  always  been  the  victims,  and  never  uttered  open  threats  of 
destruction  against  their  oppressors.  If  in  the  future  men  look 
to  great  calamities,  Ireland  is  the  only  quarter  from  which  noth- 
ing of  the  kind  is  to  be  feared,  and  the  impending  revolution 
by  which  she  may  profit  will  look  to  her  for  no  assistance  in  the 
subversion  of  societv. 

We  now  leave  the  reader  to  appreciate  to  its  full  extent  the 
real  value  of  the  opinion  of  modern  writers  who  would  justify  the 
successive  invasions  of  the  Danes  and  Anglo-Xormans,  and  also, 
we  suppose,  of  the  Puritans,  as  praiseworthy  attempts  to  intro- 
duce into  Ireland  the  municipal  system,  so  productive  of  good 
elsewhere  throughout  Europe. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  municipal  rights  have  been  of  im- 
mense advantage  to  European  society,  as  constituted  at  the  time 
of  their  introduction.  They  formed  the  germ  of  a  new  class, 
destined  to  be  the  ruling  class  of  the  world,  by  whom  human 
rights  were  first  to  be  understood  and  proclaimed,  and  the  neces- 
sary amount  of  freedom  granted  to  all  and  secured  by  just  laws 
justly  administered.  Christianity  is  the  true  source  of  all  those 
rights,  as  Christian  morality  ought  to  be  their  standard. 

But  what  an  amount  of  human  misery  was  first  required,  in 
order  that  such  blessed  results  might  follow,  merely  because  reli- 
gion, which  was  and  ever  had  been  steadily  working  to  the  same 
end,  was  altogether  set  aside,  and  its  assistance  even  despised  in 


IRELAND  IN"  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


173 


the  mighty  change !  And  after  all — we  might  say  in  conse- 
quence— how  limited  has  the  boon  practically  become !  How 
few  are  the  nations,  even  in  our  days,  which  understand  impar- 
tiality, moderation,  justice  !  How  soon  will  mankind  become 
sufficiently  enlightened  to  settle  down  peacefully  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  those  blessings  of  civil  liberty  proclaimed  and  trumpeted 
to  the  four  winds  of  heaven,  yet  in  no  place  rightly  understood 
and  equitably  shared  \ 

Ireland  never  knew  those  municipal  rights  from  which  have 
flowed  so  many  evils,  side  by  side  with  so  few  blessings,  because 
their  essential  elements  were  never  found  there.  What  the 
future  may  develop,  no  man  can  say.  It  is  time,  however,  for 
all  to  see  that  the  nation  is  equal  to  any  rights  to  which  men  are 
said  to  be  entitled. 

III.  The  great  intellectual  movement  set  on  foot  in  Europe 
during  the  middle  ages,  by  the  numerous  universities  which 
sprang  up  everywhere,  under  the  fostering  care  of  Popes  or 
Christian  monarchs,  failed  to  reach  the  island,  in  consequence  of 
its  exclusion  from  the  European  family ;  yet  even  this  was  not 
for  her  an  unmitigated  evil,  though  certainly  the  greatest  loss 
she  sustained.  While  Europe,  during  the  eighth  and  ninth  cen- 
turies, was  in  total  darkness,  Ireland  alone  basked  in  the  light 
of  science,  whose  lustre,  shining  in  her  numerous  schools,  attract- 
ed thither  by  its  brightness  the  youth  of  all  nations,  whom  she 
received  with  a  generosity  unbounded.  Not  content  with  this, 
she  sent  forth  her  learned  and  holy  men  to  spread  the  light 
abroad  and  dispel  the  thick  darkness,  to  establish  seats  of  learn- 
ing as  focuses  whence  should  radiate  the  light  of  truth  on  a  world 
buried  in  barbarism. 

And  when  the  warm  sunshine,  created  or  kept  alive  by  her, 
sheds  its  rays  on  Italy,  on  France,  on  Germany,  and  England  it- 
self, all  her  own  schools  are  closed,  her  once  great  universities 
destroyed.  Clonard,  Clonfert,  Armagh,  Bangor,  Clonmacnoise, 
are  desolate,  and  the  wealthy  Anglo-!N  orman  prelates  find  their 
purses  empty  when  the  question  arises  of  restoring  or  forming  a 
single  centre  of  intellectual  development.  The  natural  conse- 
quences should  have  been  darkness,  barbarism,  gross  ignorance. 
Ireland  never  fell  to  that  depth  of  spiritual  desolation.  Her 
sons,  though  deprived  of  all  exterior  help,  would  still  feed  for 
centuries  on  their  own  literary  treasures.  All  the  way  down 
to  the  Stuart  dynasty,  the  nation  preserved,  not  only  her  clans, 
her  princes,  and  her  brehon  laws,  but  also  her  shanachies,  her 
books,  her  ancient  literature  and  traditions.  These  the  feudal 
barons  could  not  rob  her  of;  and  if  they  would  not  repay  her, 
in  some  measure,  for  what  they  took  away,  by  flooding  her  with 
the  new  methods  of  thought,  of  knowledge,  of  scientific  investi- 
gation, at  least  they  could  not  destroy  her  old  manuscripts,  wipe 


174 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


out  from  her  memory  the  old  songs,  snatch  the  immortal  harp 
from  the  hands  of  her  bards,  nor  silence  the  lips  of  her  priests  from 
giving  vent  to  those  bursts  of  impassioned  eloquence  which  are 
natural  to  them  and  must  out.  Hence  there  was  no  tenth  cen- 
tury of  darkness  for  her  —  let  us  bear  this  in  mind  —  light  never 
deserted  her,  but  continued  to  shine  on  her  from  within,  despite 
the  refusal  of  her  masters  to  unlock  for  her  the  floodgates  of 
knowledge. 

For  this  reason  was  it  not  to  her  an  unmitigated  loss ;  but 
there  is  another  and,  perhaps,  a  stronger  still. 

We  should  be  careful  not  to  attribute  to  what  is  good  the 
abuse  made  of  it  by  men  ;  yet  the  good  is  sometimes  the  occasion 
of  evil ;  and  so  it  was  with  those  great,  admirable,  and  much-to- 
be-regretted  universities. 

They  imparted  to  the  mind  of  man  an  impulse  which  the 
pride  and  ambition  of  man  turned  to  his  intellectual  ruin.  What 
was  intended  for  the  spread  of  true  knowledge  and  faith  became 
in  the  end  the  source  of  spiritual  pride,  the  natural  fosterer  of 
doubt  and  negation.  Modern  science,  so  called,  that  incarnation 
of  vanity,  sophistry,  error,  and  delusion,  comes  indirectly  from 
those  universities  of  the  middle  ages  ;  and  it  was  chiefly  at  the 
time  of  what  is  called  the  revival  of  learning,  that  the  great  rev- 
olution in  science  came  about,  which  changed  the  intellectual 
old  into  dross,  the  once  divine  ambrosia  of  knowledge,  served  to 
appy  mortals  in  mediaeval  times,  into  poison. 

That  pretended  "revival  of  learning"  can  never  be  men- 
tioned in  connection  with  Ireland  ;  and  the  "idolatry  of  art," 
and  corruption  of  morals,  never  crossed  the  channel  which  God 
set  between  Great  Britain  and  the  Island  of  Saints. 

Another  revival,  though  of  a  very  different  character,  was, 
however,  actually  taking  place  in  Erin  at  that  very  period,  when 
the  Wars  of  the  Roses  gave  her  breathing-time,  which  we  relate 
in  the  words  of  a  modem  Irish  writer,  as  a  conclusion  to  the  re- 
flections we  have  indulged  in  : 

"Within  this  period  lived  Margaret  of  Offaly,  the  beautiful  and 
accomplished  queen  of  O'Carrol,  King  of  Ely.  She  and  her  hus- 
band were  munificent  patrons  of  literature,  art,  and  science.  On 
Queen  Margaret's  special  invitation,  the  literati  of  Ireland  and 
Scotland,  to  the  number  of  nearly  three  thousand,  held  a  "  ses- 
sion" for  the  furtherance  of  literary  and  scientific  interests  at 
her  palace  near  Killeagh,  in  Offaly,  the  entire  assemblage  being 
the  guests  of  the  king  and  queen  during  their  stay. 

"  The  nave  of  the  great  church  of  Da  Sinchell  was  converted 
for  the  occasion  into  a  banqueting-hall,  where  Margaret  herself 
inaugurated  the  proceedings  by  placing  two  massive  chalices  of 
gold,  as  offerings,  on  the  high  altar,  and  committing  two  orphan 
children  to  the  custody  of  nurses  to  be  fostered  at  her  charge. 


IRELAND  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


175 


Robed  in  clotli  of  gold,  this  illustrious  lady,  who  was  as  distin- 
guished for  her  beauty  as  for  her  generosity,  sat  in  queenly  state 
in  one  of  the  galleries  of  the  church,  surrounded  by  the  clergy,  the 
brehons,  and  her  private  friends,  shedding  a  lustre  on  the  scene 
which  was  passing  below,  while  her  husband,  who  had  often  en- 
countered England's  greatest  generals  in  battle,  remained 
mounted  on  a  charger  outside  the  church,  to  bid  the  guests 
welcome  and  see  that  order  was  preserved.  The  invitations 
were  issued,  and  the  guests  arranged  according  to  a  list  prepared 
by  O' Carrol's  chief  brehon  ;  and  the  second  entertainment, 
which  took  place  at  Rathangan,  was  a  supplemental  one,  to 
embrace  such  men  of  learning  as  had  not  been  brought  together 
at  the  former  feast." — (A.  M.  O'Sidlivan.) 

Such  was  the  true  "  revival  of  learning  "  in  Ireland — a  return 
to  her  old  traditional  teaching.  If  this  peaceful  time  had  been 
of  longer  duration,  there  is  no  doubt  that  her  old  schools  would 
have  nourished  anew,  and  men  in  subsequent  ages  might  have 
compared  the  results  of  the  two  systems :  the  one  producing, 
with  true  enlightenment,  peace,  concord,  faith,  and  piety,  though 
confined  to  the  insignificant  compass  of  one  small  island ;  the 
other  resulting  in  the  mental  anarchy  so  rife  to-day,  and  spread- 
ing all  over  the  rest  of  Europe. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE  IRISH  AXD  THE  TTTDORS.  HENRY  VTH. 

By  losing  the  only  bond  of  unity — the  power  vested  in  the 
Ard-Righ — which  held  the  various  parts  of  the  island  together, 
Ireland  lost  all  power  of  exercising  any  combined  action.  The 
nations  were  as  numerous  as  the  clans,  and  the  interests  as 
diverse  as  the  families.  They  possessed,  it  is  true,  the  same  re- 
ligion, and  in  the  observance  of  its  precepts  and  practices  they 
often  found  a  remedy  for  their  social  evils  ;  but  religion,  not  en- 
countering any  opposition  from  any  quarter,  with  the  exception 
of  the  minor  differences  existing  between  the  native  clergy  and 
the  English  dignitaries,  was  generally  considered  as  out  of  the 
question  in  their  wranglings  and  contentions.  We  shall  see  how 
the  blows  struck  at  it  by  the  English  monarchs  welded  into  one 
that  people,  were  the  cause  of  that  union  now  so  remarkable 
among  them,  and  really  constituted  the  only  bond  that  ever 
linked  them  together. 

Before  dwelling  on  these  considerations,  let  us  glance  a 
moment  at  the  state  of  the  country  prior  to  the  attempt  of  intro- 
ducing Protestantism  there. 

The  English  Pale  was  reduced  at  this  period  to  one  half  of 
five  counties  in  Leinster  and  Meath ;  and  even  within  those 
boundaries  the  O'Kavanaghs,  O'Byrnes,  O'Moores  and  others, 
retained  their  customs,  their  brehon  laws,  their  language  and 
traditions,  often  making  raids  into  the  very  neighborhood  of  the 
capital,  and  parading  their  gallowglasses  and  kerns  within  twenty 
miles  of  Dublin. 

The  nobility  and  the  people  were  in  precisely  the  same  state 
which  they  had  known  for  centuries.  The  few  Englishmen  who 
had  long  ago  settled  in  the  country  had  become  identified  with 
the  natives,  had  adopted  their  manners,  language,  and  laws,  so 
offensive  at  first  to  the  supercilious  Anglo-Normans. 

But  a  revolution  was  impending,  owing  chiefly  to  the  change 
Intely  introduced  into  the  religion  of  England,  by  Henry  Tudor. 
It  is  important  to  study  the  first  attempt  of  the  kind  in  Ireland  j 


BIKTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


177 


not  only  because  it  became  the  occasion  of  establishing  for  a 
lengthy  period  a  real  unanimity  among  the  people — giving 
birth  to  the  nation  as  it  were — but  also  for  the  right  understand- 
ing of  the  word  "  rebellion,"  which  had  been  so  freely  used 
before  toward  the  natives,  and  which  was  now  about  to  receive 
a  new  interpretation. 

The  English  had  once  deceived  the  Irish,  exacting  their  sub- 
mission in  the  twelfth  century  by  foisting  upon  them  the  word 
homage:  they  would  deceive  Europe  by  a  constant  use,  or 
rather  misuse,  of  the  words  "rebel"  and  "rebellion."  By  the 
enactment  of  new  laws  they  pronounce  the  simple  attachment  to 
the  old  religion  of  the  country  a  denial  of  sovereign  right,  and 
consequently  an  act  of  overt  treason  ;  and  the  Irish  shall  be 
butchered  mercilessly  for  the  sake  of  the  religion  of  Christ  with- 
out winning  the  name,  though  they  do  the  crown,  of  martyrdom  ; 
for  Europe  is  to  be  so  effectually  deceived,  that  even  the  Church 
will  hesitate  to  proclaim  those  religious  heroes,  saints  of  God. 

But  the  great  fact  of  the  birth  of  a  nation,  in  the  midst  of 
those  throes  of  anguish,  will  lessen  their  atrocity  in  the  mind 
of  the  reader,  and  explain  to  some  extent  the  wonderful  designs 
of  Providence. 

From  an  English  state  paper,  published  by  M.  Haverty,  we 
learn  that,  in  1515,  a  few  years  before  the  revolt  of  Luther,  the 
island  was  divided  into  more  than  sixty  separate  states,  or 
"  regions,"  "  some  as  big  as  a  shire,  some  more,  some  less." 

Had  it  not  been  for  this  division  and  the  constant  feuds  it 
engendered,  in  the  north  between  the  O'Neills  and  O'Donnells,, 
in  the  south  between  the  Geraldines  (Desmonds  and  Ivildares) 
and  the  Butlers  (Ormonds),  the  authority  of  the  English  king 
would  have  been  easily  shaken  off.  The  policy  so  constantly 
adopted  by  England  in  after-times — a  policy  well  expressed  by 
the  Latin  adage,  Divide  et  imjpera — preserved  the  English  power 
in  Ireland,  and  finally  brought  the  island  into  outward  subjec- 
tion at  least,  to  Great  Britain — a  subjection  which  the  Irish  con- 
science and  the  Irish  voice  and  Irish  arms  yet  did  not  cease  to 
protest  against  and  deny.  But  the  nation  was  divided,  and  it 
required  some  great  and  general  calamity  to  unite  them  together 
and  make  of  them  one  people. 

That,  even  spite  of  those  divisions,  they  were  at  the  time  on 
the  point  of  driving  the  English  out  of  the  island,  we  need  no 
better  proofs  than  the  words  of  the  English  themselves.  The 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  John  Allen,  the  creature  of  Wolsey,  who 
was  employed  by  the  crafty  cardinal  to  begin  the  work  of  the 
spoliation  of  convents  in  the  island,  and  oppose  the  great  Earl 
of  Kildare,  dispatched  his  relative,  the  secretary  of  the  Dublin 
Council,  to  England,  to  report  that  "  the  English  laws,  manners, 
and  language  in  Ireland  were  confined  within  the  narrow  com- 
12 


178 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


pass  of  twenty  miles  ; "  and  that,  unless  the  laws  were  duly  en- 
forced, "  the  little  place,"  as  the  Pale  was  called,  "  would  be  re- 
duced  to  the  same  condition  as  the  remainder  of  the  kingdom  ; " 
that  is  to  say,  the  Pale  itself,  which  had  been  brought  to  such  in- 
significant limits,  would  belong  exclusively  to  the  Irish. 

It  was  while  affairs  were  at  this  pass  that  the  revolt  of  "  silk- 
en Thomas"  excited  the  wrath  of  Henrv  VIII.,  and  brought 
about  the  destruction  of  almost  the  whole  fcldare  family. 

It  was  about  this  time,  also,  that  Wolsey  fell,  and  Cromwell, 
having  replaced  him  as  Chancellor  of  England,  with  Cranmer  as 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  Reformation  began  in  England 
with  the  divorce  of  the  king,  who  shortly  after  assumed  suprem- 
acy in  spirituals  as  a  prerogative  of  the  crown,  and  made  Parlia- 
ment— in  those  days  himself — supreme  law-giver  in  Church  and 
state. 

Cromwell,  known  in  history  as  the  creature  and  friend  of 
Cranmer,  like  his  protector  a  secret  pervert  to  the  Protestant 
doctrines  of  Germany,  and  the  first  arch-plotter  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  Catholicity  in  the  British  Isles,  undertook  to  save  the 
English  power  in  Ireland  by  forcing  on  that  country  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  king  in  religious  matters,  knowing  well  that  such  a 
step  would  drive  the  Irish  into  resistance,  but  believing  that  he 
could  easily  subdue  them  and  make  the  island  English. 

Having  been  appointed,  not  only  Chancellor  of  England,  but 
also  king's  vicar-general  in  temporals  and  spirituals,  Cromwell 
inquired  of  his  English  agents  in  Ireland  the  best  means  of  at- 
taining his  object — the  subjection  of  the  country.  Their  report 
is  preserved  among  the  state  papers,  and  some  of  their  sugges- 
tions deserve  our  attentive  consideration.  If  Henry  VIII.  had 
consented  to  follow  their  advice,  he  would  have  himself  inaugu- 
rated the  bloody  policy  so  well  carried  out  long  after  by  another 
Cromwell,  the  celebrated  "  Protector." 

The  report  sets  forth  that  the  most  efficient  mode  of  proceed- 
ing was  to  exterminate  the  people ;  but  Henry  thought  it  suffi- 
cient to  gain  the  nobility  over — the  people  being  beneath  his  no- 
tice. 

The  agents  of  the  vicar-general  were  right  in  their  atrocious 
proposal.  They  knew  the  Irish  nation  well,  and  that  the  only 
way  to  separate  Ireland  from  the  See  of  Peter  was  to  make  the 
country  a  desert. 

Their  means  of  bringing  about  the  destruction  of  the  people 
was  starvation.  The  corn  was  to  be  destroyed  systematically, 
and  the  cattle  killed  or  driven  away.  Their  operations,  it  is 
true,  were  limited  to  the  borders  of  the  Pale.  The  gentle  Spen- 
ser, at  a  later  period,  proposed  to  extend  them  to  all  Munster, 
and  it  was  a  special  glory  reserved  for  the  "  Protector  "  to  carry 
out  this  policy  through  almost  the  whole  of  the  island. 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


179 


"  The  very  living  of  the  Irishry,"  says  the  report,  "  doth 
clearly  consist  in  two  things  :  take  away  the  same  from  them, 
and  they  are  passed  for  ever  to  recover,  or  yet  to  annoy  any  sub- 
ject in  Ireland.  Take  first  from  them  their  corn,  and  as  much 
as  cannot  be  husbanded,  and  had  into  the  hands  of  such  as  shall 
dwell  and  inhabit  in  their  lands,  to  burn  and  destroy  the  same, 
so  as  the  Irishry  shall  not  live  thereupon ;  and  then  to  have  their 
cattle  and  beasts,  which  shall  be  most  hardest  to  come  by,  and 
yet,  with  guides  and  policy,  they  may  be  oft  had  and  taken." 

The  report  goes  on  to  point  out,  most  elaborately  and  ingen- 
iously, every  artifice  and  plan  for  carrying  this  policy  into  effect. 
But  here  we  have,  condensed,  as  it  were,  in  a  nutshell,  and  coolly 
and  carefully  set  forth,  the  system  which  was  adopted  later  on, 


for  the  execution  of  this  barbarous  scheme  had  not  yet  come,  and 
we  find  no  positive  results  following  immediately. 

This  project,  complete  as  it  was,  was  far  from  being  the  only 
one  proposed  at  that  time  for  "  rooting  out  the  Irish  "  from  Ire- 
land. Mr.  Prendergast,  in  his  "  Introduction  to  the  Cromwell- 
ian  Settlement,"  says : 

"  The  Irish  were  never  deceived  as  to  the  purport  of  the 
English,  and,  though  the  Pale  had  not  been  extended  for  two 
hundred  and  forty  years,  their  firm  persuasion  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  VIII.  was,  that  the  original  design  was  not  abandoned. 
'  Irishmen  are  of  opinion  among  themselves,'  said  Justice  Cusack 
to  the  king,  i  that  Englishmen  will  one  day  banish  them  from 
their  lands  forever.'  " 

In  fact,  project  after  project  was  then  proposed  for  clearing 
Ireland  of  Irish  to  the  Shannon.  Some  went  so  far  as  already  to 
contemplate  their  utter  extirpation  ;  but  "  there  was  no  pre- 
cedent for  it  found  in  the  chronicles  of  the  conquest.  Add  to 
this  the  difficulty  of  finding  people  to  reinhabit  it  if  suddenly 
unpeopled. 

"  The  chiefs  and  gentlemen  of  the  Irish  only  were  to  be  driven 
from  their  properties,"  according  to  some  of  those  projects,  "  and 
they  only  were  to  be  driven  into  exile,  while  their  lands  should 
be  given  to  Englishmen." 

"  The  king,  however,  seems  to  have  been  satisfied  with  con- 
fiscating the  estates  of  the  Earl  of  Kildare  and  of  his  family. 
Fierce  and  bloody  though  he  was,  there  was  something  lion-like 
in  his  nature  ;  notwithstanding  all  those  promptings,  he  left  to 
the  Irish  and  old  English  their  possessions,  and  seemed  even 
anxious  to  secure  them,  but  failed  to  do  so  for  want  of  time." 

We  think  Mr.  Prendergast's  judgment  of  Henry  VIII.  too 
favorable.  Generosity  did  not  prompt  him  to  spare  the  people 
and  the  nobles,  with  the  exception  of  the  Kildares.  We  believe 
that  he  never  contemplated  the  extirpation  of  the  people,  because 


and  almost 


success.    But  the  moment 


180 


BERTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


such  a  political  element  could  not  enter  into  his  mind.  As  for 
the  nobles,  he  wished  to  gain  them  over,  because  of  the  long 
wars  he  foresaw  necessary  to  bring  about  their  utter  extinction 
or  exile. 

He  adopted,  accordingly,  a  plan  of  his  own,  holding  firm  to 
his  design  of  ha  vino;  his  new  title  of  "  Head  of  the  Church  "  ac- 
knowledged  in  Ireland  as  well  as  in  England. 

Cromwell  commenced  his  work  by  two  measures  which  had 
met  with  perfect  success  in  the  latter  country,  but  which  were 
destined  to  fire  the  sister  isle  from  end  to  end,  and  make  "  the 
people,"  in  course  of  time,  really  one.  These  measures  were  acts 
of  Parliament :  1.  Establishing  the  king's  spiritual  supremacy  ; 
2.  Suppressing,  at  once,  all  the  monasteries  existing  in  the  coun- 
try, and  giving  their  property  to  the  nobles  who  were  willing  to 
apostatize. 

The  necessity  of  convening  Parliament  resulted  from  the  fail- 
ure of  the  first  attempt,  already  made,  to  establish  the  king's  su- 
premacy. Browne,  the  successor  of  Allen  in  the  See  of  Dublin, 
a  rank  Lutheran  at  heart,  had  been  commissioned  by  the  king 
and  by  Cranmer,  his  consecrator,  to  establish  the  new  doctrine 
at  once.  His  want  of  success,  is  thoroughly  explained  in  a  letter 
to  Cromwell,  which  is  still  preserved,  and  which  remains  one  of 
the  proudest  monuments  of  the  steadfastness  of  the  Irish  in  their 
religion. 

He  complains  that  not  only  the  clergy,  but  the  "  common 
people,"  were  "more  zealous  in  their  blindness  than  the  saints 
and  martyrs  in  truth,  in  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel, "  and 
"  such  was  their  hostilitv  against  him  that  his  life  was  in  danger." 

%J         CD  CD 

And  all  this  in  Dublin,  in  the  heart  of  the  Pale,  where  the 
chief  antagonist  of  the  new  doctrine,  "  the  leader  of  the  people  " 
against  this  first  attempt  at  schism,  was  Cromer,  the  Archbishop 
of  Armagh,  an  Englishman  himself  !  So  that  those  prelates  of 
England,  who,  with  the  exception  of  the  noble  Fisher,  had  all 
yielded  without  a  murmur  of  opposition  to  the  will  of  Henry, 
could  find  no  followers,  not  even  of  their  own  nation,  in  Ireland, 
so  much  had  their  faith  been  strengthened  by  contact  with  that 
of  "  the  common  people." 

A  Parliament  was  needed,  therefore,  and  that  one  which  was 
to  be  the  instrument  of  introducing  the  great  English  measure, 
met  for  the  first  time  in  Dublin,  on  the  1st  of  May,  1536;  but, 
being  prorogued,  it  met  again  in  1537,  and  did  not  complete  its 
work  until  once  more  summoned  in  1541,  when  the  old  Irish 
element  was  for  the  first  and  last  time  introduced  at  its  sitting, 
in  order,  if  possible,  to  consecrate  the  new  doctrine  by  having  it 
solemnly  accepted  by  the  old  race. 

This  Parliament,  which  was  first  convened  in  Dublin,  Me- 
Geoghegan  says,  "  adjourned  to  Kilkenny,  thence  to  Cashel,  after- 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


181 


ward  to  Limerick,  and  lastly  to  Dublin  again."  The  chief  cause 
of  these  interruptions  was  tlie  difficulty  or  bringing  an  Irish  Par- 
liament, even  when  composed  of  Englishmen,  as  was  the  case  up 
to  1541,  to  pass  the  decrees  of  supremacy,  denial  of  Roman  au- 
thority, etc.,  which  had  been  so  readily  accepted  in  England. 

The  Irish  Parliaments,  as  far  back  as  we  can  see,  were  com- 
posed not  only  of  lords,  spiritual  and  temporal,  and  of  depu- 
ties of  the  Commons,  but  each  diocese  possessed  also  the  right 
to  send  there  three  ecclesiastical  proctors,  who,  by  reason  of  their 
office,  owned  neither  benefice  nor  fief,  and  were  therefore  at 
liberty  to  vote,  fearless  of  attainder  and  confiscation,  in  accord- 
ance with  their  conscience  and  their  sense  of  right. 

This  feature  of  the  Irish  assemblies,  even  when  no  represent- 
ative of  the  native  race  sat  in  them,  was  a  fatal  obstacle  to  the 
success  of  the  scheme  devised  by  Browne  and  executed  by 
Cromwell.  Accordingly,  we  are  not  astonished  to  find  that,  by 
an  act  of  despotism  not  uncommon  during  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.,  the  proctors  were  excluded  from  Parliament,  which  thus 
became  an  obedient  tool  in  the  hands  of  the  government. 

Not  only,  therefore,  were  several  state  measures  carried  in 
accordance  with  the  wish  of  the  king,  but  the  great  object  pro- 
posed by  the  meeting  of  this  assembly  was  finally  obtained ;  and, 
following  the  lead  of  the  English  Parliament,  Henry  VIII.  and 
his  successors  were  confirmed  in  the  title  of  "  Supreme  Head 
of  the  Church  in  Ireland,"  with  power  of  reforming  and  correc- 
ting errors  in  religion.  All  appeals  to  Rome  were  prohibited, 
and  the  Pope's  authority  declared  a  usurpation. 

Henry,  however,  foreseeing  that  all  these  favorite  measures 
of  his  policy,  being  carried  by  English  votes  in  a  purely  English 
assembly,  though  on  Irish  soil,  would  meet  with  universal  op- 
position from  all  the  native  lords,  conceived  the  idea  of  summon- 
ing the  great  Irish  chieftains  to  a  new  meeting  of  Parliament, 
from  which  he  expected  that  a  moral  revolution  would  be  effect- 
ed in  the  island.  Sir  Anthony  St.  Leger,  created  deputy  in  Au- 
gust, 15-10,  was  thought  a  likely  man  to  be  intrusted  with  so  deli- 
cate a  mis-ion.  He  conducted  it  with  political  prudence,  that  is 
to  say,  with  a  judicious  mixture  of  kindness  and  fraud,  which  suc- 
ceeded beyond  all  expectations. 

In  order  to  prepare  the  way  for  hoodwinking  the  Irish  chief- 
tains, favors  of  every  kind  were  showered  upon  them,  to  wit,  titles 
and  estates,  chiefly  those  of  suppressed  monasteries  ;  and  St. 
Leger,  by  an  alternate  use  of  force  and  diplomacy,  at  length  ef- 
fected that  the  Irish  should  consent  to  accept  titles.  Con  O'Neill, 
the  head  of  the  house  of  Tyrone,  went  to  England,  accompanied 
oy  O'  Kervellan,  Bishop  of  Clogher,  and  was  admitted  to  an 
audience  by  the  king.  Henry  adopted  toward  those  proud 
Irishmen  a  policy  utterly  different  from  that  he  had  used  with 


1S2 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


the  English  lords.  These  latter  were  merely  threatened  with  his 
displeasure,  and  with  the  feudal  penalties  he  knew  so  well  how  to 
inflict ;  the  others  were  received  at  court  as  favorites  and  dear 
friends ;  a  royal  courtesy,  kind  expressions,  a  smiling  face — such 
were  the  arms  he  employed  against  the  "  barbarous  Irish." 

Tyrone,  O'Donnell,  and  others,  were  not  proof  against  his 
cunning.  The  first  renounced  his  title  of  prince  and  the  glori- 
ous name  of  O'Xeill.  to  receive  in  return  that  of  Earl  of  Tyrone. 
Manus  O'Donnell  was  made  Earl  of  Tyrconnel.  Both  received 
back  the  lands  which  they  had  offered  to  the  king,  and  their 
example  was  followed  by  a  great  number  of  inferior  lords. 
Among  them,  two  Magenisses  were  dubbed  knights  ;  Murrough 
O'Brien,  of  Xorth  Munster,  was  made  Earl  of  Thomond  and 
Baron  of  Inchiquin  ;  De  Burgo,  or  McWilliams,  was  created 
Earl  of  Clanricard,  and  a  host  of  others  submitted  in  like  man- 
ner, and  received  the  new  titles  which  henceforth  became  con- 
spicuous in  Irish  history. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  gradual  suppression  of  the 
clans.  Many  of  these  nobles,  unfortunately,  not  content  with 
receiving  back,  at  the  hands  of  the  king,  the  lands  which  had 
come  into  their  possession  from  a  long  line  of  ancestors,  and 
which  really  belonged  not  to  them  personally,  but  to  the  clans 
whose  heads  they  were,  greedily  snatched  at  the  estates  of  re- 
ligious orders,  whose  suppression  was  the  first  consequence  of 
the  schism  in  Ireland,  which  will  soon  occupv  our  attention. 

The  Irish  chieftains  had  alreadv  seen  Wolsev,  a  cardinal  in 
full  communion  with  Rome,  suppress  forty  monasteries  in  the 
island.  Thev  might  therefore  imagine  that  the  confiscation  of  a 
still  greater  number  on  the  part  of  the  king  was  a  thing  not  al- 
together incompatible  with  the  religion  of  the  monarch,  and  that 
the  fact  of  their  sharing  in  the  plunder  was  not  entirely  opposed 
to  their  titles  of  Catholics  and  subjects  of  Rome.  Such  is  human 
conscience  when  blinded  by  self-interest. 

The  kins:  thought  that  he  had  gained  over  the  nobilitv, 
— which  was  all  he  wished — and  the  last  session  of  the  previous 
Parliament  of  1536  and  the  following  years  might  now  be  held 
in  order  to  consecrate  the  unholy  work. 

"On  the  12th  of  June,  154*1,"  says  Mr.  Haverty,  "a  Parlia- 
ment was  held  in  Dublin,  at  which  the  novel  sight  was  witnessed 
of  Irish  chieftains  sitting  for  the  first  time  with  English  lords.. 
O'Brien  appeared  there  by  his  procurators  and  attorneys,  and 
Kavanagh,  O'More,  O'Beilly,  Mc Williams,  and  others,  took 
their  seats  in  person,  the  addresses  of  the  Speaker  and  of  the 
Lord-Chancellor  being  interpreted  to  them  in  Irish  by  the  Earl 
of  Ormond.  An  act  was  unanimously  passed,  conferring  on 
Henry  V  HI.  and  his  successors  the  title  of  King  of  Ireland,  in- 
stead of  that  of  Lord  of  Ireland,  whi(?h  the  English  kings,  since 


BIETH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


183 


the  davs  of  John,  had  hitherto  borne.  This  act  was  hailed  with 
great  rejoicings  in  Dublin,  and  on  the  following  Sunday,  the 
lords  and  gentlemen  of  Parliament  went  in  procession  to  St. 
Patrick's  Cathedral,  where  solemn  high  mass  was  sung  by  Arch- 
bishop Browne,  after  which  the  law  was  proclaimed  and  a  Te 
Deum  chanted." 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  in  the  session  of  1541,  at  which 
alone  the  Irish  chieftains  appeared,  not  a  word  was  said  of  the 
supremacy  of  the  king  in  spirituals.  Sir  James  Ware,  who  gives 
the  various  decrees  with  more  detail  than  usual,  makes  no  men- 
tion of  this  pet  measure  of  the  king  and  of  the  Lutheran  Arch- 
bishop Browne,  but  it  was  only  part  and  parcel  of  the  Parliament 
of  1536,  prorogued  successively  to  Kilkenny,  Cashel,  Limerick, 
and  tin  ally  again  to  Dublin.  At  its  first  sitting  the  law  of 
supremacy  was  passed  and  proclaimed  as  law  of  Ireland.  Noth- 
ing was  said  of  it  in  the  various  sessions  that  followed,  includ- 
ing that  of  154:1  ;  and  yet  the  Irish  chieftains  were  supposed 
to  have  sanctioned  it,  inasmuch  as  it  was  a  measure  previously 
passed  in  the  same  Parliament :  and  the  suppression  of  various 
abbeys  and  monasteries  having  been  openly  decreed  in  the  final 
session,  as  a  result  of  the  king's  supremacy — Rome  not  having 
been  consulted,  of  course — all  the  signers  of  the  last  decree  were 
supposed  to  have  thereby  sanctioned  and  adopted  the  previous 
ones.  Thus  O'Neill,  O'Reilly,  O'More,  and  the  rest,  without  be- 
ing aware  of  the  fact,  became  schismatics,  though  many  of  them, 
perhaps  all,  did  not  see  the  connection  between  the  various  ses- 
sions of  that  long  Parliament.  Certainly,  if,  on  leaving  the  Dub- 
lin Cathedral,  where  they  had  heard  the  archbishop's  mass  and 
assisted  at  that  solemn  Te  Deum,  they  had  been  told  that  that 
act  was  intended  to  consecrate  the  surrender  of  the  religion  of 
their  ancestors,  and  the  commencement  of  a  frightful  revolution, 
which  would  end  in  the  destruction  of  their  national  existence, 
almost  of  their  very  race,  they  would  have  incredulously  laughed 
to  scorn  the  unwelcome  prophet. 

But  even  if,  as  we  may  well  believe,  those  Irish  lords  had 
really  been  the  victims  of  deception,  and  had  not,  as  a  body, 
been  corrupted  by  the  sacrilegious  gift  of  suppressed  monasteries, 
the  people,  their  clansmen,  prompted  by  the  vivid  impressions 
and  unerring  instincts  of  religious  faith  and  patriotic  nationality, 
which  were  ever  living  in  their  breasts,  resented  the  weakness 
of  their  chieftains  as  a  national  defection  and  a  real  apostasy,  and 
took  immediate  steps  to  bring  the  lords  to  their  senses,  and  to 
prevent  the  spread  of  English  corruption. 

All  who  had  received  titles  from  Henry,  and  surrendered  to 
him  the  deeds  of  their  lands,  as  if  those  lands  belonged  to  them 
personally,  and  not  to  the  clans  collectively,  all  those,  particular- 
ly, who  had  enriched  themselves  by  the  plunder  of  religious 


1S4 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


houses,  and  who  had  taken  anv  part  in  the  destruction  of  the 

religions  orders  so  dear  to  the  Irish  heart,  were  soon  made  to  feel 
the  indignation  which  those  events  had  excited  among  the  na- 
tive clansmen,  north  and  south.  And  those  of  the  chieftains  who 
had  really  been  deceived,  and  had  preserved  in  their  hearts  all 
through  a  strong  love  for  their  religion  and  country,  were  re- 
called to  a  sense  of  their  error,  and  brought  back  to  a  sense  of 
their  duty  by  the  unmistakable  voice  of  the  u  people." 

While  the  nobles  were  still  in  England,  feted  by  Henry  in 
his  royal  palace  of  Greenwich,  renouncing  their  Irish  names  to 
become  English  earls  and  barons,  the  Ulster  chief,  protesting  that 
he  would  never  again  take  the  name  of  O'XeilL  but  content  him- 
self with  the  title  of  Earl  of  Tyrone :  while  0?Brien  was  being 
created  Earl  of  Thomond  ;  Me  Williams,  Earl  of  Clanricard ; 
O'Donnell,  Earl  of  Tyrconnell  ;  Kavanagh,  Baron  of  Ballyann ; 
and  Fitzpatrick,  Baron  of  Ossory ;  the  clans  at  home,  hearing  in 
due  time  of  those  real  treasons^  were  concerting  plans  for  making 
their  lords  repent  of  their  weakness  or  treachery,  and  for  admin- 
istering to  them  due  punishment  on  their  return. 

O'XeilL  u  the  first  of  his  race  who  had  accepted  an  English 
title,"  on  landing  in  Ireland,  learned  that  his  people  had  deposed 
him,  and  elected  in  his  stead  his  son  John  the  Proud,  better 
known  as  Shane  O'Xeill ;  O'Donnell,  on  his  arrival,  met  most 
of  his  clan,  headed  by  his  son,  up  in  arms  against  him ;  the  new 
Earl  of  Clanricard  had  already  been  deposed  by  his  people  and 
another  M:- Williams,  with  a  Gaelic  name,  elected  in  his  place; 
and  so  with  the  rest. 

But.  unfortunately,  the  Government  of  England  was  strong 
enough  to  support  its  favorite  chieftains,  and  it  found  some  Irish 
tools  ready  at  hand  to  form  the  nucleus  of  an  Irish  party  in 
their  favor.  Thus,  unanimity  no  longer  marked  the  decisions 
of  the  clans  ;  two  parties  were  formed  in  each  of  them,  the  one 
national,  comprising  the  great  bulk  of  the  people,  the  real,  true 
people  ;  the  other  English,  composed  of  a  few  apostate  Irishmen, 
backed  by  the  p:>wer  of  England.  Thus,  henceforth  we  hear  of 
the  O'Reillv,  and  the  Icing's  O'Eeilly,  etc. 

Henry  VlIL  seemed,  therefore,  with  the  help  of  his  minister, 
St.  Leger.  to  have  succeeded  in  breaking  up  the  clans,  after  the 
Irish  national  government  had  been  broken  up  long  before. 
Confusion  of  titles,  property,  and  traditions  became  worse  con- 
founded. How  could  the  shanachies,  bards,  and  brehons,  any 
longer  agree  in  their  pedigrees,  songs,  and  legal  decisions! 
England  had  thus  early  adopted  in  Ireland  the  stern  and  cold- 
hearted  policv  which,  centuries  later,  she  used  to  destroy  the  na- 
tive and  Mohammedan  dynasties  in  Hindostan.  It  was  not  yet 
divide  et  impera  on  a  large  scale,  but  the  division  was  pushed. 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


185 


as  far  as  lay  in  the  power  England,  to  the  very  last  elements  of 
the  social  system. 

From  this  time  forward,  then,  we  must  not  be  surprised  to 
find  England  welcoming  to  her  bosom  unworthy  sons  of  Ireland, 
whom  she  wished  to  make  her  tools.  There  was  always,  either 
in  Dublin  or  London,  a  sufficient  supply  of  materials  out  of 
which  crowds  chiefs  might  be  manufactured ;  the  government 
made  it  part  of  its  policy  to  hold  in  its  hands  and  train  to  its 
purposes  certain  members  of  each  of  the  ruling  families — of  the 
O'Neills,  O'Reillys,  O'Donnells,  O'Connors,  and  others. 

It  was  no  longer,  therefore,  the  rooting  out  and  extermi- 
nating policy  which  prevailed,  but  one  as  fatal  in  its  results, 
which  would  have  utterly  destroyed  Irish  national  feeling,  to  set 
up  in  its  place,  not  only  English  manners,  language,  and  cus- 
toms, but  also  English  schism,  heresy,  philosophical  speculations 
— as  the  Four  Masters  have  it — finally,  materialism  and  nihil- 
ism. 

But,  in  real  sober  fact,  the  scheme  proved  almost  an  utter 
failure,  owing  to  the  far-seeing  good  sense  of  the  people.  The 
national  spirit  revived  among  the  upper  classes,  both  native  and 
of  English  descent — owing  to  the  decided  stand  taken  by  the  in- 
ferior clansmen. 

The  Desmonds  and  Kildares,  in  the  south,  the  O'Donnells, 
Maguires,  and  others,  in  the  north,  soon  showed  themselves  ani- 
mated by  a  new  spirit  of  ardent  Catholicism  ;  created,  in  fact,  a 
new  nation,  quite  apart  from,  or  rather  embracing,  clanship,  well- 
nigh  destroyed  the  English  power,  kept  Elizabeth,  during  the 
whole  of  her  reign,  in  constant  agitation  and  fear,  and  would 
have  succeeded  in  recovering  their  independence,  and  securing 
freedom  of  worship,  had  not  their  good-nature  been  imposed 
upon  by  the  hypocrisy  and  faithlessness  of  the  Stuarts,  to  whom 
they  always  looked  for  freedom  in  the  practice  of  their  religion, 
without  ever  obtaining  it. 

Thus  did  the  people,  the  Irish  race,  thwart  the  policy  of 
Henry,  who  sought  to  gain  over  the  nobility.  Their  stubborn  re- 
sistance to  the  vastly-increased  and  constantly-increasing  English 
power,  grew  at  last  to  such  proportions,  and  became  so  discour- 
aging to  their  oppressors,  that  the  old  policy  of  utter  extermina- 
tion was  resumed  by  Cromwell  and  the  Orange  party  of  the  fol- 
lowing age. 

The  refusal  of  the  people,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  bulk  of  the 
nation,  to  submit  to  the  policy  of  their  chieftains,  and  the  deter- 
mination to  repudiate  that  policy  by  deposing  its  supporters  aDd 
choosing  others  in  their  stead,  was  most  happy  in  its  effect  on 
their  whole  future  history. 

The  leaders,  by  accepting  the  new  titles  bestowed  on  them 
by  the  English  kings,  by  taking  their  seats  in  Parliament,  and 


t 


186  BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 

concurring  in  the  various  measures  there  passed,  subjected  them- 
selves to  a  foreign  rule,  surrendered  to  this  rule  the  tribe-lands, 
which  it  was  not  in  their  power  to  surrender  of  themselves,  gave 
up,  in  fact,  their  nationality,  and  became  English  subjects.  The 
action  of  the  clansmen  reversed  all  the  fatal  consequences  result- 
ing from  those  acts.  They  remained  a  nation  distinct  from  the 
English,  whose  laws  they  had  never  either  admitted  or  accepted. 
And,  as  the  clan  spirit  declined,  under  the  policy  of  England,  it 
only  made  way  for  a  new  and  a  greater  spirit — religious  feeling, 
the  bond  of  a  common  religion  assaulted — which,  henceforth,  lay 
at  the  bottom  of  the  whole  struggle — which,  for  the  first  time  in 
their  history,  blended  into  one  whole  the  broken  clans,  gave  them 
a  unity  and  a  consistency  never  known  till  then,  and  thus  the 
real  nation  was  born. 

They  might  boast,  therefore,  not  only  of  not  having  lost  their 
autonomy,  but  of  being  more  firmly  than  ever  knit  together ; 
they  could  conclude  treaties  of  alliance  with  foreign  powers, 
without  committing  treason,  and  they  soon  began  to  use  that 
power  ;  they  could  even  declare  war  against  England,  and  it  was 
not  rebellion.  The  successors  of  Henry  Till,  acted  constantly 
as  though  the  Irish  nation  had  really  subjected  itself  to  English 
kings  and  English  rule,  as  though  the  acceptance  of  a  few  titles 
by  a  few  chieftains  (who  were  deposed  by  their  people  as  soon  as 
the  fact  was  known)  signified  an  acknowledgment  on  the  part 
of  the  Irish  people  of  their  absorption  by  the  English  feudal  sys- 
tem ;  they  appeared  "  horrified  "  when  they  saw  the  successors 
of  those  chieftains  reject  those  titles  and  resume  their  own 
names;  and  they  called  the  Irish  "rebels"  and  "  traitors"  for 
going  to  war  with  England — a  country  they  had  never  acknowl- 
edged as  their  ruler — and  introducing  into  their  country  Spanish, 
Italian,  and  French  troops  as  allies. 

The  explanation  of  the  whole  mystery  consisted  in  the  simple 
fact  that  the  people,  the  nation,  had  steadily  refused  to  sanction 
the  act  of  their  leaders  ;  and  all  the  pretensions  of  English  kings, 
statesmen,  and  lawyers,  were  valueless.  Those  Irishmen  who 
subsequently  entered  into  the  various  Geraldine  and  Ulster  con- 
federacies, and  summoned  foreign  armies  to  their  aid,  were 
neither  rebels  nor  traitors,  but  citizens  of  an  independent  state, 
possessing  their  international  rights  as  citizens  of  any  indepen- 
dent country.  This  we  have  seen  in  a  previous  chapter,  and  Sir 
John  Davies  has  been  obliged  to  confess  its  truth,  admitting  the 
difference  between  a  tributary  and  a  subject  nation. 

A  glance  shows  us  the  importance  of  the  almost  unanimous 
outcry  of  the  clansmen  of  Tyrone,  Tyrconnell,  and  of  other  parts 
of  Ireland.  Owing  to  the  patriotic  feeling  of  these,  nothing  re- 
mained for  the  English  but  to  punish  the  Irish  people  for  their 
resolve  of  holding  to  their  religion,  and  to  declare  a  religious 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


187 


war  against  them,  though  they  called  them  all  the  time  rebels 
and  traitors.  This  is  the  view  an  impartial  historian  should  take 
of  those  mighty  events. 

But,  it  is  well  to  look  more  closely  at  this  new  element, 
which  then  showed  itself  for  the  first  time  in  Irish  national  life, 
the  people,  irrespective  of  clanship  ;  the  people,  as  influencing  the 
leaders,  and  thus  becoming  a  living — nay,  a  ruling  power  in  the 
state.  And,  lest  anv  of  our  readers  should  not  be  convinced 
that  such  really  was  the  case,  we  mention  here  a  fact,  which  will 
come  more  prominently  before  us  in  the  next  chapter,  that,  at 
the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  the  efforts  of  all  her  large  armies 
and  her  tortuous  policy  for  changing  the  religion  of  the  country, 
resulted  in  the  grand  total  of  sixty  converts  to  Protestantism 
from  the  noble  class,  not  one  of  the  clansmen  turning  apostate ! 

Bridget  of  Kildare  would  not  have  been  surprised  at  this,  to 
judge  by  what  we  have  previously  heard  from  her. 

In  order  to  find  the  explanation  of  this  wonderful  fact,  we 
must  compare  the  Irish  people  with  other  nationalities,  and  we 
may  then  easily  distinguish  its  peculiar  features,  so  persistent,  so 
enduring,  we  may  say,  indestructible.  We  shall  find  that  what 
this  people  was  three  hundred  years  ago,  it  is  to  this  day,  with  a 
greater  unity  of  feeling,  devotedness  to  principle,  and  higher 
aims  than  any  people  01  modern  times. 

In  antiquity,  the  people,  in  the  Christian  sense  of  the  word, 
never  appeared  in  the  field  of  history.  In  the  despotic  countries 
of  Asia  and  Africa,  there  was  and  could  be  no  question  of  such  a 
thing ;  it  was  an  inert  mass  used  at  will  by  the  despot.  The 
Phoenician  states,  and  Carthage  in  particular,  were  mere  oli- 
garchies, with  commerce  for  their  chief  object,  and  slaves  for 
mercantile  or  warlike  purposes.  In  the  republics  of  Greece  and 
Italy,  the  aristocracy  ruled,  and  when,  after  centuries  of  bloody 
struggles  and  revolutions,  the  subjects  of  Rome  were  finally 
granted  the  rights  of  citizenship,  the  despotism  of  the  empire 
suddenly  appeared,  crushing  both  jplebs  and  patricians. 

Whenever  in  those  ancient  governments  we  find  the  lower 
classes  unable  longer  to  bear  the  heavy  yoke  imposed  upon  them, 
revolting  against  a  despotism  which  had  grown  insupportable, 
and  claiming  their  natural  rights,  it  was  merely  a  surging  of 
waves  raised  to  mountain-height  by  the  furv  of  a  sudden  storm, 
but  soon  allayed  and  subdued  beneath  the  inflexible  will  of  stern 
rulers.  The  people  was  a  mere  mob,  whose  violence,  when  suc- 
cessful, fatally  carried  destruction  with  it  ;  and,  though  it  is 
seemingly  full  of  a  terrible  power  which  nothing  can  resist,  its 
power  lasts  but  for  a  very  short  time.  Could  it  only  outlast 
the  destruction  of  all  superior  rulers,  it  would  end  by  destroyiug 
itself. 

If  we  would  meet  with  the  people,  such  as  we  conceive  it  to 


ISS 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


be  in  accordance  with  onr  Christian  ideas,  we  mnst  come  down 
to  that  period  of  time  which  followed  close  upon  the  organization 
of  Christendom,  namely,  to  the  much-abused  middle  ages.  Feu- 
dalism, it  is  true,  withstood  its  expansion  for  a  long  time,  kept 
alive  the  remnants  of  slavery  which  it  had  found  in  Europe  at 
its  birth,  or  at  best  invented  serfdom  as  a  somewhat  milder  sub- 
stitute for  the  former  degradation  of  man.  But  feudalism  itself 
was  not  strong  enough  to  prevent  the  natural  consequences  of 
the  vigorous  Christianity  which  at  that  time  prevailed ;  and 
kings,  dukes,  and  feudal  bishops,  were  compelled  to  grant  char- 
ters which  insured  the  freedom  of  the  subject.  Then  the  people 
appeared,  in  the  cities  first,  afterward  in  the  country,  where, 
however,  the  peasants  had  still  to  drag  on  for  a  weary  time  the 
chains  of  secular  serfdom. 

Thus  the  people  lived  in  Spain,  where  they  fought  valiantly 
under  their  lords  for  centuries  against  the  Crescent,  so  that  in 
some  provinces  all  classes  were  ennobled,  and  not  a  single  plebeian 
was  to  be  found,  which  simply  means  that  the  whole  mass  of  the 
citizens  formed  the  people.  Thus  the  people  had  an  early  exist- 
ence in  Italy,  where  every  city  almost  became  a  centre  of  freedom 
and  activity,  notwithstanding  strife  and  continual  feuds.  Thus 
the  people  had  its  life  in  France,  where  the  learned  men  of  Cath- 
olic universities  determined  with  precision  the  limits  of  kingly 
power,  and  where  the  outburst  of  the  Crusades  brought  all 
classes  together  to  fight  for  Christ,  forming;  but  one  body 
engaged  alike  throughout  in  a  holy  cause.  Thus,  finally,  the 
people  had  its  life  even  in  Germany  and  England,  where  real 
liberty,  though  of  later  birth,  afterward  remained  more  deeply 
rooted  in  social  life. 

In  all  those  countries,  it  was  called  pojpvlus  Ch?%istianus  •  it 
had  its  associations,  its  guilds,  its  Christian  customs,  its  privi- 
leges, its  rights.  Its  existence  was  acknowledged  by  law,  and  it 
possessed  everywhere  either  Christian  codes,  or  at  least  local  cus- 
toms for  its  safeguards.  It  gradually  grew  into  a  great  power, 
and  took  the  name  of  the  "  Third  Estate,"  ranking  directly  after 
the  clergy  and  nobility.  Its  members  knew  and  respected  the 
gradations  of  the  social  hierarchy  as  then  exist ing.  The  mon- 
archs  m  most  countries,  in  France  chiefly,  sided  with  it  whenever 
the  nobles  sought  to  oppress  it,  and  its  deputies  were  heard  in 
the  Parliaments  of  the  various  nations  of  Christendom. 

How  many  millions  of  human  beings  lived  happily  during 
several  centuries  under  these  great  institutions  of  mediaeval 
times !  And  if  the  members  of  the  people  at  that  time  could  sel- 
dom rise  above  their  order,  except  through  the  Church,  this 
unfortunate  inability  often  prevented  dangerous  and  subversive 
ambitions,  and  was  thus  really  the  source  and  cause  of  happiness 
to  all.   Governments  at  that  period  lasted  for  thousands  of  years ; 


BIETH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


189 


men  could  rely  on  the  stability  of  tilings,  and  great  enterprises 
could  be  undertaken  and  carried  to  a  successful  termination. 

But  throughout  all  Europe,  with  the  single  exception  of  Ire- 
land, the  people  had  to  contend  against  the  feudal  power ;  and 
it  was  only  very  gradually,  and  step  by  step,  that  it  could  creep  up 
to  its  rights.  In  Ireland,  as  we  have  seen,  feudalism  had  failed  to 
6trike  root ;  so  that  the  clansmen  who  represented  there  what 
the  people  did  elsewhere,  never  having  been  subject  to  slavery 
or  serfdom,  possessed  all  the  liberties  which  the  ordinary  class 
of  men  can  claim.  They  had  always  borne  their  share  in  the 
affairs  of  their  own  territory,  at  least  by  the  willing  help  they 
afforded  to  their  leaders,  during  the  Danish  wars  chiefly,  and 
afterward  throughout  the  four  hundred  years  of  struggle  with  the 
Anglo-Normans.  The  people  were  the  real  conquerors  under  the 
lead  of  their  chieftains,  and  the  perpetual  enjoyment  of  their 
beloved  customs  was  the  privilege  of  the  least  among  them  as 
much  as  of  the  proudest  of  their  nobles.  They  themselves  were 
well  aware  of  this,  and  to  their  own  efforts  no  less  than  to  the 
heads  of  the  clans  they  attributed  the  advantages  which  they  had 
gained. 

Thus,  when  the  conduct  of  their  chieftain  was  not  in  accord- 
ance with  what  the  clansmen  considered  the  right,  they  were 
ready  to  express  their  disapproval  of  his  actions  by  deposing  him, 
and  placing  their  allegiance  at  the  service  of  the  man  of  their 
choice. 

But  though  this  course  of  action  is  true  of  the  whole  period 
of  their  history,  more  especially  from  the  date  of  their  becoming. 
Christian  up  to  the  time  when  the  blows  of  religious  persecution 
welded  them  into  one  people,  yet  they  were  divided  and  often  at 
war  among  themselves.  But  no  sooner  did  the  work  of  perver- 
sion make  itself  felt  among  them,  than  we  behold  the  clansmen 
exhibiting  a  unity  of  feeling  on  many  points  which  never 
marked  them  before.  So  that  thenceforth  the  separated  clans 
gradually  began  to  merge  into  Irishmen. 

This  unity  of  feeling  showed  itself,  above  all,  in  the  deep  love 
for  their  religion,  which  at  once  became  universal  and  all-per- 
vading. This  love  had  undoubtedly  existed  before,  as  it  could 
scarcely  have  originated  and  swollen  to  such  proportions  all  at 
once  ;  but  as  the  stroke  of  the  hammer  reveals  the  spark,  so  the 
force  of  opposition  enkindled  the  flame  and  caused  it  to  burst 
forth  into  view.  At  the  first  blow  it  showed  itself  throughout 
the  island,  and  thus  the  people  became  once  and  forever  united. 

This  unity  of  feeling  was  displayed  likewise  in  an  ardent  love 
for  their  country  in  contradistinction  to  the  special  locality  of  the 
tribe.  Thus  arose  a  true  fraternal  union  with  all  their  country- 
men of  whatever  county  or  city.  The  old  antagonism  between 
family  and  family  only  appeared  at  fitful  and  unguarded  inter- 


190 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


vals  ;  but  in  general  each  one  grasped  the  hand  of  another  only 
as  a  Catholic  and  an  Irishman. 

This  is  clearly  attributable  to  their  religion.  Catholicity 
knows  no  place  ;  its  very  name  is  opposed  to  restrictions  of  this 
character.  Could  it  carry  out  its  purpose,  which  is  that  of  its 
Divine  founder,  it  would  make  one  of  all  nations ;  and,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  it  has  achieved  this  task.  Differences  of  character, 
which  are  deeplv  impressed  in  the  nature  of  various  branches  of 
the  human  family,  are  indeed  never  totally  obliterated  by  it ;  but 
such  differences  disappear  when  kneeling  at  the  same  altar  and 
receiving  the  same  sacraments.  The  Catholic  religion  is  the  only 
one  which  is,  has  ever  been,  and  must  ever  claim  to  be,  univer- 
sal ;  the  religions  of  antiquity  were  purely  local. 

Since  the  coming  of  our  Lord,  no  heresy,  no  schism  has  ever 
pretended  to  the  reality  of  a  catholic  existence,  and,  if  the  word 
is  self-applied  by  certain  sects,  the  world  laughs  at  it  as  a  mean- 
ingless thing.  The  Catholic  Church  alone  has  truly  claimed  and 
possessed  such  a  character. 

But  if  of  all  men  it  makes  one  family  with  respect  to  spiritual 
matters,  what  unanimitv  of  feeling  must  it  not  create  in  a  single 
nation  truly  imbued  with  its  spirit,  which  is  attacked  for  its  sake? 
Until  the  reign  of  Henry  V ILL.,  the  Irish,  in  their  struggle  with 
England,  could  summon  no  religious  thought  to  their  aid,  since 
England  was  Catholic  also,  and  the  Xorman  nobles  established 
among  them  followed  the  same  calendar,  possessed  the  same 
churches,  the  same  creed,  the  same  sacraments.  But  as  soon  as 
the  English  power  was  stamped  with  heresy,  the  opposition  to 
that  power  assumed  a  religious  aspect,  and  no  longer  restricted 
itself  to  the  clans  immediately  attacked,  but  spread  throughout 
the  whole  nation. 

To  bring  the  case  down  to  some  particular  point,  in  order  to 
render  our  meaning  more  clear,  a  priest  or  monk,  who  was 
hunted  down,  was  no  longer  sure  of  refuge  in  his  own  district, 
and  among  men  of  his  own  sept  merely,  but  he  was  equally  wel- 
comed in  the  castle  of  the  chieftain  or  the  hut  of  the  peasant 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  Any  Irishman,  sub- 
ject to  fine,  imprisonment,  or  torture,  for  the  sake  of  his  religion, 
did  not  find  sympathy  restricted  to  his  own  circle  of  friends  or 
acquaintances,  but,  even  if  tried  and  prosecuted  in  a  corner  of  the 
island,  far  away  from  his  own  home,  he  could  count  upon  the 
sympathy  of  as  many  friends  as  there  were  Irish  Catholics  to  wit- 
ness his  sufferings.  This  state  of  things  was  certainly  unknown 
before. 

Religion,  when  deep,  is  the  strongest  feeling  of  the  human 
heart,  and  endows  the  nation  steeped  in  it  with  an  unconquerable 
strength.  To  judge  of  the  intensity  of  religious  feeling  in  the 
Irish,  it  should  be  remembered  that  it  was  the  only  legacy  left 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


191 


them  after  every  thing  else  had  been  taken  away,  and,  thongh  it 
was  the  special  object  of  attack,  they  were  to  be  stripped  one  by 
one  of  their  old  customs,  their  own  chieftains,  their  houses  of 
study  and  of  prayer,  their  religious  and  secular  teachers,  nay,  of 
the  chance  even  of  educating  their  children,  of  the  right  to  pos- 
sess not  merely  their  own  soil,  but  even  to  cultivate  a  few  acres  of 
it,  nay,  of  their  very  language  itself,  in  a  word,  of  all  that  makes 
a  country  dear  to  man.  For  ages  were  they  destined  to  remain 
outcasts  and  strangers  on  the  soil  which  was  their  own,  abject 
and  ignorant  paupers,  without  the  faintest  possibility  of  rising  in 
the  social  scale. 

One  thing  only  did  they  keep  in  their  hearts,  their  faith, 
thongh  stripped  of  all  the  exterior  circumstances  which  adorn  it, 
and  reduced  to  its  simplest  elements.  But  at  least  it  was  their 
religion,  to  deprive  them  of  which,  all  the  wealth,  resources,  ar- 
mies, laws  of  a  powerful  nation,  were  to  be  strained  to  the  utmost 
during  long  ages.  How,  then,  could  they  fail  to  love  and  cher- 
ish it,  to  cling  fast  to  it,  as  to  an  inestimable  treasure,  the  only 
real  one  indeed  they  could  possess  on  earth,  where  all  else  passes 
away  ? 

Here,  then,  always  presupposing  the  paramount  influence  of 
the  grace  of  God,  lay  the  secret  of  that  indestructible  strength 
and  un  vearied  energy  manifested  by  Irishmen,  from  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  century  down,  and  we  are  enabled  thus  to  ap- 
preciate the  value  of  that  unity  which  persecution  alone  fastened 
upon  them. 

To  the  love  of  religion,  which  was  the  origin  of  that  unity, 
love  of  country  was  soon  added,  and  by  love  of  country  we  here 
understand  the  love  of  the  whole  island,  not  merely  of  the  par- 
ticular sept  to  which  the  individual  belonged,  or  of  the  particular 
spot  in  which  he  happened  to  be  born.  Such  had  been  the  divis- 
ions among  the  people  and  the  chieftains  hitherto,  that  England 
could  attack  one  sept  without  fearing  the  revolt  of  the  others, 
nay,  was  often  assisted  by  an  adverse  clan.  And  so  thoroughly 
had  the  Anglo-Normans  adopted  the  native  manners,  that  the 
Kildares  were  frequently  at  war  with  the  Desmonds,  though  both 
belonged  to  the  same  Geraldine  family  ;  and  the  Ormonds  kept 
up  a  constant  feud  with  both  the  Geraldine  branches.  When 
Henry  Till,  almost  destroyed  the  Kildares,  we  do  not  find  that 
the  Desmonds  felt  their  loss  at  first ;  perhaps  they  even  rejoiced 
at  it. 

It  was  the  same  with  the  natives,  particularly  with  the 
O'Neills  and  the  O'Donnells,  in  the  north-  The  whole  island  and 
its  general  interests  seemed  the  concern  of  no  one,  so  taken  up 
were  they  by  the  affairs  of  their  own  particular  locality.  And 
this  state  of  feeling  had  existed  from  the  beginning,  even  among 
holy  men.    The  songs  of  Columba,  of  Cormac  McCullinan,  even 


192 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


of  the  Fenian  heroes  of  old,  all  celebrated  the  victories  of  one 
eept  over  another,  or  the  beauties  of  some  one  spot  in  the  island, 
in  preference  to  all  others. 

[Nay,  so  prevalent  was  this  clannish  spirit,  even  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  religious  troubles,  that  Henry  V1LL,  and  Elizabeth 
after  him,  gained  their  successes  by  directing  their  attacks 
against  particular  places,  so  certain  were  they  that  the  other 
districts  would  not  come  to  the  rescue. 

The  feeling  of  nationality,  of  what  we  call  patriotism, 
wrestled  a  long  time  in  the  throes  of  birth,  before  coming  forth, 
and  it  was  only  during  the  latter  half  of  Elizabeth's  reign  that 
those  confederacies  were  formed,  which  included  the  whole  coun- 
try and  called  in  even  foreign  aid. 

But  this  feeling  began  to  appear  as  soon  as  religion  was  at- 
tacked ;  and  therefore  do  we  call  this  epoch  the  true  birth  of  a 
people. 

And  as  it  is  with  the  people  chiefly  that  we  are  concerned,  it 
is  to  our  purpose  to  remark  here  that  they  gradually  lost  sight  of 
their  petty  quarrels  and  local  prejudices  in  losing  their  chief- 
tains ;  they  began  to  look  for  leaders  among  themselves,  and, 
understanding  at  last  that  the  whole  island  was  threatened  by 
the  invading  policy  of  England,  they  were  to  fight  for  the 
whole,  and  not  for  any  special  district. 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  did  Ireland  become  a  reality  to  them, 
an  existing  personality,  a  desolate  queen  weeping  over  the  fate 
of  her  children,  calling,  with  the  voice  of  a  stricken  mother,  those 
who  survived  to  her  aid,  and  worthy,  by  her  beauty  and  misfor- 
tunes, of  their  most  heroic  and  disinterested  efforts. 

Religious  feeling,  then,  first  made  the  Irish  a  nation,  and 
gave  them  that  unity  of  thought  which  they  now  exhibit  every- 
where, even  in  the  remotest  quarters  of  the  globe,  wherever  they 
may  choose  their  place  of  exile.  And  if  there  still  exists  among 
them  something  of  that  former  predilection  for  the  place  where 
they  first  saw  the  light,  the  other  parts  of  Erin  are  at  least  in- 
cluded in  their  deep  love,  and  they  would  shed  their  blood  for 
their  country,  irrespective  of  prejudice  of  place. 

Thus  have  they  come  at  last  to  love  each  other  as  men  of  no 
other  nation  ever  did.  In  order  to  understand  this  thoroughly, 
we  must  remember  that  for  ages  they,  as  a  people,  have  been 
oppressed  and  held  in  bondage  by  a  stern  and  powerful  nation. 
They  had  to  defend  themselves  in  turn  against  the  most  open 
and  the  most  insidious  attacks.  Bereft  in  many  cases  of  all  the 
means  of  defence,  they  had  nothing  left  them,  save  their  religion, 
and  the  support  they  could  afford  each  other. 

If,  by  any  stretch  of  imagination,  we  could  place  ourselves  in 
their  position,  understand  their  language  when  they  met  each 
other  in  their  huts,  in  their  morasses  and  bogs,  in  their  mountain 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


193 


fastnesses  and  desolate  moors,  could  we  only  enter  into  their  feel- 
ings and  see  the  working  of  their  minds,  we  might  catch  a  faint 
conception  of  the  affection  which  they  must  have  felt  for  brothers 
waging  the  deadly  fight  against  the  same  enemies,  and  contend- 
ing in  a  seemingly  endless  and  hopeless  struggle  against  the 
same  terrible  odds.  Union,  affection,  devotedness,  are  words 
too  weak  to  serve  here. 

For  this  reason,  also,  do  we  find  the  Irish  people  stamped 
with  peculiarities  which  we  find  in  no  others.  In  antiquity,  as 
we  have  said,  the  people  could  never  rise  to  any  thing  greater 
than  a  mob  ;  in  modern  times  such  has  also  often  been  the  case. 
With  the  Irish  it  is  not,  and  could  not  be  so.  Their  aim  has  al- 
ways been  too  lofty,  their  struggle  of  too  long  duration,  their  mo- 
rality too  genuine  and  too  pure.  For  their  aim  has  constantly 
been  to  rescue  their  country ;  their  struggle  has  lasted  nearly 
three  hundred  years  ;  their  morality  has  ever  been  directed  by  the 
sweetest  religion.  Extreme  cases  of  oppression  such  as  theirs 
may  have  occasionally  given  rise  to  violent  outbreaks  inevitable 
in  human  despair ;  but,  on  the  whole,  it  may  to  their  honor  be 
fearlessly  said,  that  they  have  preserved,  almost  throughout,  a 
due  regard  for  social  hierarchy  and  all  kinds  of  rights.  Many  of 
them  have  died  of  hunger,  rather  than  touch  the  property  of  a 
rich  and  hostile  neighbor.  Where  else  can  we  find  such  an  ex- 
ample ? 

This  union  of  the  people,  which  was  thus  brought  about  by 
religious  persecution,  included  not  only  the  natives  of  the  old 
race,  but  the  Anglo-Irish  themselves,  who  were  brought  by  de- 
grees to  a  unanimity  of  feeling  which  they  had  never  known  be- 
fore, although  they  had  previously  adopted  Irish  manners — a 
unanimity  which  the  Lutheran  Archbishop  Browne  had  foreseen 
and  openly  denounced  beforehand.  This  was  the  man  who  had 
unwittingly  borne  testimony  to  the  Irish  that  "  the  common  peo- 
ple of  this  isle  are  more  zealous  in  their  blindness  than  the  saints 
and  martyrs  were  in  the  truth  at  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel ; " 
the  same  George  Browne,  of  Dublin,  had  also  been  the  first  to 
perceive  that  the  religious  question  was  beginning,  even  under 
Henry  Till.,  to  unite  the  native  Irish  and  the  descendants  of 
Strongbow's  followers,  until  that  time  bitterly  opposed  to  each 
other. 

In  a  letter,  dated  "  Dublin,  May,  1538,"  to  the  Lord  Privy 
Seal,  he  said  :  "  It  is  observed  that,  ever  since  his  Highness' s  an- 
cestors had  this  nation  in  possession,  the  old  natives  have  been 
craving  foreign  powers  to  assist  and  raise  them  ;  and  now  both 
English  race  and  Irish  begin  to  oppose  your  lordship's  orders  " 
(about  supremacy),  "  and  do  lay  aside  their  national  old  quarrels, 
which,  I  fear,  if  any  thing  will  cause  a  foreigner  to  invade  thia 
nation,  that  will." 
13 


194 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


This  man,  who  was  altogether  worldly  and  without  faith,  dis- 
played in  this  a  keen  political  foresight  far  above  that  of  the 
ordinary  counsellors  of  England's  king.  He  openly  announced 
what  actually  came  to  pass  only  toward  the  middle  of  Elizabeth's 
reign,  and  what  the  horrors  of  the  Cromwellian  wars  were  to 
complete — the  thorough  fusion  of  Irish  and  Anglo-Norman  Cath- 
olics, both  transplanted  to  Connaught,  perishing  under  the  sword 
of  the  soldier,  the  rope  of  the  hangman,  or  dying  of  starvation 
in  the  recesses  of  their  mountains — united  forever  in  the  bonds 
of  martyrdom. 

The  "  birth  of  the  Irish  people "  was  to  be  insured  by  an- 
other measure  of  the  English  Government — the  suppression  of 
religious  houses.    We  must,  in  conclusion,  turn  to  this. 

In  the  annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  under  the  year  1537,  we 
read :  "  A  heresy  and  a  new  error  broke  out  in  England,  the 
effect  of  pride,  vainglory,  avarice,  sensual  desire,  and  the  preva- 
lence of  a  variety  of  scientific  and  philosophical  speculations ',  so 
that  the  people  of  England  went  into  opposition  to  the  Pope  and 
to  Rome. 

"  At  the  same  time,  they  followed  a  variety  of  opinions ;  and, 
adopting  the  old  law  of  Moses,  after  the  manner  of  the  Jewish 
people,  they  gave  the  title  of  Head  of  the  Church  of  God,  dur- 
ing his  reign,  to  the  king.  They  ruined  the  orders  who  were 
permitted  to  hold  worldly  possessions,  namely,  monks,  canons 
regular,  nuns,  and  Brethren  of  the  Cross,  etc.  .  .  .  They  broke 
into  the  monasteries,  they  sold  their  roofs  and  bells ;  so  that 
there  was  not  a  monastery  from  Arran  of  the  Saints  to  the  Iccian 
Sea  that  was  not  broken  and  scattered,  except  only  a  few  in  Ire- 
land." 

And,  under  1540,  they  say :  "  The  English,  in  every  place 
throughout  Ireland,  where  they  established  tlieir  power,  perse- 
cuted and  banished  the  nine  religious  orders,  and  particularly 
they  destroyed  the  monastery  of  Monaghan,  and  beheaded  the 
guardian  and  a  number  of  friars." 

We  may  add  that,  at  the  restoration  of  the  old  faith  under 
Queen  Mary,  nothing  had  to  be  restored  in  Ireland  save  the 
monasteries.  These  establishments  had,  almost  without  excep- 
tion, been  ruthlessly  destroyed. 

In  our  previous  considerations,  we  have  spoken  of  no  other 
religious  houses  in  Ireland,  save  those  of  the  old  Columbian  order 
of  monks,  as  it  was  called,  which  was  a  growth  of  the  country,  and 
bore  so  many  marks  of  Irish  peculiarities.  This  continued  until, 
communications  with  Rome  becoming  more  frequent,  the  various 
orders  established  in  the  West  were  successively  introduced  into 
Ireland.  Our  purpose  is  not  to  write  a  history  of  monasticism, 
and  therefore  we  do  not  intend  entering  into  details  on  this 
point,  interesting  though  they  are.  But  we  may  add  that,  gradu- 


BIETH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


195 


ally,  the  old  monasteries — from  the  Isorman  invasion  chiefly—  as 
well  as  the  new  ones  which  were  established,  were  placed  under 
the  rule  of  the  various  congregations,  acknowledged  by  the  Holy 
See.  It  seems  that  the  monasteries  founded  by  St.  Columba  him- 
self afterward  submitted  to  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict,  the  others, 
for  the  most  part,  embracing  that  of  the  canons  regular  of  St.  Au- 
gustine ;  but  the  precise  epoch  of  these  changes  is  not  known.  It 
is  certain,  however,  that  the  Benedictines,  Cistercians,  and  Ber- 
nardines,  were  introduced  into  the  country  at  a  very  early  date, 
together  with  the  four  mendicant  orders  of  Franciscans,  Domini- 
cans, Carmelites,  and  Augustinians. 

The  pretext  for  their  destruction  was,  of  course,  the  same  in 
England  as  in  all  the  other  countries  of  Europe — their  need  of 
reformation  ;  but  it  does  not  appear  that  even  this  pretence  was 
put  forward  in  the  case  of  the  Irish  monasteries.  The  fact  was, 
the  breath  of  suspicion  could  not  rest  upon  those  stainless  estab- 
lishments in  the  Isle  of  Saints.  In  the  idea  of  the  natives,  their 
very  names  had  ever  been  synonymous  with  holiness  and  all 
Christian  virtues,  and  so  they  continued  to  enjoy  the  most  un- 
bounded popularity.  The  fact  of  the  English  Government  select- 
ing them  as  a  special  point  of  attack  is  in  itself  sufficient  to  vin- 
dicate their  character  from  any  aspersion.  Two  measures  were 
deemed  necessary  and  sufficient  for  the  purpose  of  detaching  Ire- 
land from  its  allegiance  to  the  Holy  See,  and  of  introducing 
schism,  if  not  heresy,  into  the  country.  One,  and  certainly  the 
most  efficacious  of  these,  was  thought  to  be  the  destruction  of 
convents  for  both  sexes.  This,  we  affirm,  is  ample  apology  for 
their  inmates. 

But  this  general  reflection  is  not  enough  for  our  purpose, 
which  is,  to  delineate  and  bring  out  the  true  character  of  the 
nation.  It  is,  therefore,  fitting  to  give  an  idea  of  the  extent  to 
which  the  monastic  influence  prevailed,  and  of  the  nature  of  the 
people  who  cherished,  loved,  and  accepted  it  at  all  times. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  Christian  Church,  as  established  in 
the  island  by  St.  Patrick,  rested  mainly  for  its  support  on  the 
religious  orders.  In  many  cases  the  abbots  of  monasteries  were 
superior  to  bishops,  and,  as  a  general  rule,  the  hierarchy  of  the 
Church  was,  as  it  were,  subordinate  to  monastic  establishments.1 
At  the  time  we  speak  of,  indeed,  such  was  no  longer  the  case ; 
but  the  previously-existing  state  of  reciprocal  subordination 
between  abbots  and  bishops  during  several  centuries,  in  Ireland, 
had  left  deep  traces  in  the  nature  of  the  institutions  and  of  the 
people  itself.  It  may  be  said  that  in  the  mind  of  an  Irishman 
the  existence  of  Christianity  almost  presupposed  a  numerous 
array  of  convents  and  religious  houses.    And  this  idea  of  theirs 

1  Vide  Montalembert's  "  Monks  of  the  West :  Bollandists,  Oct.,"  tome  xii.,  p.  888. 


196 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


can  scarcely  be  called  a  wrong  one,  nor  did  they  exaggerate  the 
value  of  religious  orders,  since  their  estimate  of  them  was  no 
higher  than  that  of  Christ  himself  and  his  Church. 

If  with  justice  it  was  said  that  the  French  monarchy  was 
established  by  bishops,  with  equal  justice  may  it  be  said  that  the 
Irish  people  had  been  educated,  nay,  created  by  monks.  The 
monks  had  taken  the  place  left  vacant  by  the  Druids,  and  thus 
they  became  for  the  Christian  what  the  others  had  been  for  the 
pagan  Irish.  For  a  long  period  the  Irish  monks  formed  a  very 
considerable  portion  of  the  population.  In  their  body  were  con- 
centrated the  gifts  of  science,  art,  holiness,  even  miracles  without 
number,  unless  we  are  to  suppose  that  the  hagiography  of  the 
island  was  intrusted  to  the  care  of  idiots  incapable  of  ascertaining 
current  facts.  The  vast  literature  of  the  island,  greater  indeed 
than  that  of  any  other  Christian  country  at  the  time,  was  either 
the  product  of  monastic  intellect  and  learning,  or  at  least  had 
been  translated  and  preserved  by  monks.  The  gifted  Eugene 
O'Curry  could  fill  numbers  of  the  pages  of  his  great  work  with 
the  bare  titles  of  the  books  which  are  known  to  have  issued  from 
the  Irish  monasteries,  of  which  but  a  few  fragments  remain  ;  and 
no  sensible  man  who  has  read  his  book  can  affect  to  despise 
establishments  which  could  produce  so  many  proofs  of  fancy, 
intellect,  and  erudition.  The  scattered  fragments  of  that  rich 
literature,  which  had  escaped  the  fury  of  the  Scandinavian,  the 
ignorance  and  rapacity  of  the  early  Anglo-Norman,  the  blind 
fanaticism  of  the  Puritan,  could  still  in  the  seventeenth  century 
furnish  materials  enough  for  the  immense  compilations  of  the 
Four  Masters,  Ward,  Wadding,  Lynch,  and  Colgan. 

What  we  have  here  stated  is  the  simple,  unvarnished  truth  ; 
yet  it  is  but  yesterday  that  the  subject  has  really  begun  to  be 
studied. 

But  what  is  chiefly  worthy  our  attention  is,  that  the  monas- 
teries were  not  only  the  seats  of  learning  and  literature  in  Ire- 
land, but  they  constituted  and  comprised  in  themselves  every 
thing  of  value  which  the  nation  possessed.  As  they  were  found 
everywhere,  there  was  not  room  for  much  else  in  the  department 
they  filled  in  the  island.  Take  them  away,  and  the  country  is  a 
blank.  So  well  were  the  crafty  counsellors  of  Henry  YIII.  and 
Elizabeth  satisfied  of  this,  that  they  insisted  on  the  destruction  of 
the  monasteries,  and  turned  all  their  efforts  to  carry  their  purpose 
into  effect. 

Feudalism  had  failed  in  its  endeavor  to  cover  the  country 
with  castles  ;  the  native  royalty  and  inferior  chieftainship  being 
engaged  in  constant  bickerings  with  each  other  and  with  the 
common  foe,  had  been  unable  to  enrich  the  country  with  monu 
ments  of  art  and  wealthy  palaces  ;  the  Church  alone  had  accom- 
plished whatever  had  been  effected  in  this  way,  and  in  the 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


197 


Church  the  monks  rather  than  the  bishops  had  for  a  long  time 
exercised  the  preponderating  influence.  Hence,  it  may  be  truly 
said  that  Ireland  was  essentially  a  monastic  country,  more  so 
than  any  other  nation  of  Christendom. 

This  fact  explains  how  it  happened  that  the  monastic  institu- 
tions could  not  be  destroyed.  The  convent-walls  might  be  bat- 
tered down,  the  more  valuable  edifices  might  be  converted  into 
dwellings  for  the  new  Protestant  aristocracy,  their  property 
might  go  to  enrich  upstarts,  and  feed  the  rapacity  of  greedy  con- 
querors, but  the  institution  itself  could  not  perish. 

It  is  true  that  in  all  Catholic  countries  this  seems  also  to  be 
the  case  ;  but  wide  is  the  difference  with  regard  to  Ireland.  In 
all  places  religious  establishments  have  frequently  been  the 
object  of  anti-Christian  fury  and  rage.  They  have  often  been 
destroyed,  and  seem  to  have  utterly  disappeared,  when  the  world 
has  been  surprised  by  their  speedy  resurrection.  The  fact  is, 
the  Church  needs  them,  and  the  practice  of  evangelical  counsels 
must  forever  be  in  a  state  of  active  operation  upon  earth,  since 
the  grace  of  God  always  inspires  with  it  a  number  of  select  souls. 
God  is  the  source  ;  consequently  the  stream  must  flow,  since  the 
life-spring  is  eternal  and  ever-running. 

But  in  other  countries  besides  the  one  under  our  consideration 
religious  houses  and  institutions  have  sometimes  been  effectually 
rooted  out,  at  least  for  a  time.  When  the  French  Constituent  As- 
sembly, by  one  of  its  destructive  decrees,  closed  those  establish- 
ments all  over  France,  such  of  them  as  by  their  laxity  deserved  to 
die,  ceased  at  once  to  exist,  and  poured  forth  their  inmates  to  swell 
the  ranks  of  a  corrupt  society,  and  add  religious  degradation  to 
the  immoral  filth  of  the  world.  Those  religious  houses,  within 
whose  walls  the  spirit  of  God  had  not  ceased  to  dwell,  were 
indeed  closed  and  emptied  ;  but  their  inmates  endeavored  to  live 
their  lives  of  religion  in  some  unknown  and  obscure  spot,  until 
the  madness  of  the  Convention,  and  the  Reign  of  Terror  which 
soon  followed,  rendered  the  continuation  of  the  holy  exercises  of 
any  community  absolutely  impossible.  But  mark  this  well : 
the  holy  aims  of  the  monks  and  nuns  found  no  response  in  the 
nation,  and,  finding  themselves  almost  entirely  rejected  by  a 
faithless  people,  with  no  resting-place  in  the  whole  extent  of  the 
country,  a  sudden  and  total  interruption  of  religious  ascetic  life 
in  the  once  most  Catholic  nation  of  Europe  was  the  result. 

The  same  may  soon  come  to  pass  in  our  days  in  Italy  and 
Spain,  until  better  times  return  to  those  now  distracted  coun- 
tries, and  the  extremities  of  evil  bring  them  back  to  something 
of  their  primitive  faith. 

Not  so  in  Ireland :  the  communities  could  continue  to  exist 
even  when  turned  out-of-doors,  because  the  nation  wanted  them, 
and  could  afford  them  asylum  and  peace  in  the  worst  periods  of 


198 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


persecution.  And  this  great  fact  of  the  mutual  love  between 
monks,  priests,  and  people,  contributed  also  in  no  small  degree 
to  that  union  among  all,  which  henceforth  became  the  charac- 
teristic feature  of  a  people  hitherto  split  up  into  hostile  clans. 
Nothing  probably  tended  so  much  toward  effecting  the  birth  of 
the  nation  as  the  deep  attachment  existing  between  the  Irish  and 
their  religious  orders.  The  latter  had  always  preached  peace 
and  often  reconciled  enemies,  and  brought  furious  men  to  the 
practice  of  Christian  charity  and  forbearance. 

We  have  seen  instances  of  this  when  the  clans  were  all  pow- 
erful and  the  chieftains  thought  of  nothing  but  of  "preyings,"  as 
they  called  them,  compelling  their  enemies  to  give  "  hostages  "  and 
devastating  the  territories  of  hostile  clans.  Then  the  voice  of 
the  monk  came  to  be  heard  in  the  midst  of  contending  passions, 
and  real  miracles  were  often  performed  by  them  in  changing 
into  lambs  men  who  resembled  roaring  lions  or  devouring  wolves  ; 
but  their  action  became  much  more  efficacious  when  nothing 
was  left  to  the  people  save  their  religion  and  the  "  friars." 
These,  it  is  true,  could  no  longer  reside  within  the  walls  of  their 
convents,  but  on  that  very  account  their  life  became  more  truly 
one  with  that  of  the  people. 

Sometimes  they  found  refuge  in  the  large,  hospitable  dwell- 
ings of  the  native  nobility,  where,  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII.  and  the  whole  of  that  of  Elizabeth,  the  al- 
most independent  power  of  the  chieftains  could  still  afford  them 
succor.  Sometimes  also  the  humbler  dwelling  of  the  farmer  or 
the  peasant  offered  them  a  sure  asylum,  wherein  they  could  prac- 
tise their  ministry  in  almost  perfect  freedom,  owing  to  the  sure 
and  inviolable  secrecy  of  the  inmates  and  neighbors.  For  a  great 
distance  around,  the  Catholics  knew  of  their  abode,  were  often 
visited  by  them,  even  without  much  danger  of  the  fact  becom- 
ing known  to  spies  and  informers.  And  this  brings  naturally 
before  us  a  new  feature  of  the  Irish  character. 

Their  nature,  which  was  so  expansive  and  passionate  on  all 
other  subjects,  so  that  to  keep  a  secret  was  an  impossible  feat  to 
them,  wore  another  character  when  danger  to  their  religion  or 
its  ministers  required  of  them  to  set  a  seal  on  their  lips.  For 
years  frequently,  large  numbers  of  priests  and  religious  could  not 
only  exist,  but  move  and  work  among  them,  without  their  place 
of  abode  becoming  known  to  the  swarms  of  enemies  who  sur- 
rounded them.  The  nation  was  trained  to  prudence  and  dis- 
cretion by  centuries  of  oppression  and  tyranny.  Many  facts  of 
this  nature  are  known  and  recorded  in  the  dark  annals  of  those 
times  ;  but  how  many  more  will  be  known  never ! 

Thus,  in  the  year  1588,  during  the  worst  part  of  Elizabeth's 
reign,  "John  O'Malloy,  Cornelius  Dogherty,  and  Waif ried  Fer- 
rall,  of  the  order  of  St.  Francis,  fell  finally  Victims  to  the  malice 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


199 


of  the  heretics.  They  had  spent  eight  years  in  administering  the 
consolations  of  religion  throughout  the  mountainous  districts  of 
Leinster.  Many  families  of  Carlow,  Wicklow,  and  Wexford, 
had  been  compelled  to  take  a  refuge  in  the  mountains  from  the 
fury  of  the  English  troops.  The  good  Franciscans  shared  in  all 
their  perils,  travelling  about  from  place  to  place,  by  night ;  they 
visited  the  sick,  consoled  the  dying,  and  offered  up  the  sacred 
mysteries  for  all.  Oftentimes  the  hard  rock  was  their  only  bed  ; 
but  they  willingly  embraced  nakedness,  and  hunger,  and  cold, 
to  console  their  afflicted  brethren.*' — {Mo rati s  Archbishops  of 
Dublin.) 

In  these  few  words,  we  have  a  picture  of  the  mountain  mon- 
astery. During  those  eight  years,  how  many  Irish  were  consoled 
and  comforted  by  those  few  laborers,  who,  driven  from  their  holy 
home,  had  chosen  to  live  in  the  wilderness,  and  practise  their 
rule  among  the  wandering  people  of  three  large  counties,  re- 
ceiving in  return  the  substance,  the  love,  and  loving  secrecy  of 
their  nock !  We  have  only  to  figure  to  ourselves  this  scene,  or 
similar,  repeated  in  every  corner  of  the  land,  and  we  may  then 
easily  understand  how  the  Irish  people  were  brought  to  the 
unanimous  resolve  of  standing  by  each  other,  and  how,  from 
the  state  of  complete  division  which  formerly  prevailed,  the 
elements  of  a  compact,  solid,  and  indestructible  body,  began  to 
form. 

We  attribute  this  "  birth  of  a  nation  "  to  Henry  YIIL,  be- 
cause the  change  which  he  tried  to  introduce  into  the  religion  of 
the  island  constituted  the  occasion  and  origin  of  it ;  and,  although, 
his  reign  never  witnessed  that  perfect  union  of  the  people  which 
came  later  on,  nevertheless,  it  is  true  that  then  it  surely  began, 
and  its  origin  was  the  attempt  to  establish  his  spiritual  suprem- 
acy in  Ireland. 

This  feeling  of  union  and  strength  in  love  went  on  growing, 
and  showed  itself  more  and  more,  during  the  two  centuries  which 
followed,  when  so  many  scenes  similar  to  the  one  described  were 
enacted  in  the  remotest  parts  of  the  island.  God,  in  his  mercy, 
provided  it  with  many  high  mountains,  difficult  of  access,  whose 
aths  were  known  only  to  the  natives.  In  these  fastnesses,  the 
oly  men,  who  had  been  driven  from  their  dwellings  and  their 
churches,  could  rest  in  peace  and  attend  to  the  duties  of  their 
office.  They  could  even  recruit  their  shattered  forces,  admit 
novices,  and  train  them  up ;  and  thus  their  rule  continued  to  be 
observed,  and  their  existence  as  a  body  protracted,  long  after 
their  enemies  imagined  that  they  had  perished  utterly.  As  soon 
as  quiet  was  restored,  when  persecution  abated,  and  breathing- 
time  was  given  them,  so  that  they  could  show  themselves,  with 
some  safety,  more  openly,  they  visited  their  old  abodes,  often 
found  some  portions  of  the  ruins  which  admitted  of  repair,  and 


200 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


dwelt  again  in  security  where  their  predecessors  had  dwelt  for 
centuries. 

The  peasant's  hut  would  also  often  afford  them  shelter ;  some 
solitary  tarm-honse  on  the  borders  of  a  lake,  or  near  a  deep  morass, 
took  the  name  of  their  monastery ;  some  cranogut  in  the  lake,  or 
dry  spot  in  the  thick  of  the  morass,  which  they  could  reach  by 
paths  known  to  themselves  only,  was  their  asylum  in  times  of 
extraordinary  danger.  In  ordinary  times,  the  form-house,  to 
which  they  had  given  the  name  of  their  lost  monastery,  was  their 
convent.  It  was  thus  the  brothers  O'Cleary,  and  their  compan- 
ions, lived  for  years,  editing  the  work  of  the  <;  Four  Masters," 
until,  at  length,  they  succeeded  in  publishing  their  extraordi- 
nary i%  Annals. "  The  manuscripts  which,  in  spite  of  the  raging 
persecution,  and  the  ki  penal  laws,"  they  traversed  the  whole 
island  to  collect,  were  preserved,  with  a  reverend  care,  in  a  poor 
Irish  hut.  Literary  treasures  which  have  since  unfortunately 
perished,  but  which  they  saved  for  a  time  from  the  reach  of  the 
enemy,  and  which  they  perpetuated  by  having  them  printed, 
filled  the  poor  presses  and  the  old  furniture  of  their  asylum,  and, 
owing  purely  to  the  friendly  help  of  those  who  had  given  them 
shelter,  they  were  enabled  to  enrich  the  world  with  their  marvel- 
lous compilation. 

From  the  mountain  and  the  hut,  on  the  river-side,  the  monks 
were  sometimes  allowed  to  move  to  their  former  dwellings,  at 
the  risk,  nevertheless,  of  their  liberty  and  lives.  What  their  an- 
cestors had  done  during  the  Scandinavian  invasions,  when  the 
monasteries  were  so  often  destroyed  and  rebuilt,  that  did  the 
monks  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  likewise  in 
manv  parts  of  the  island. 

Thus.  Father  Moonev,  a  Franciscan,  relates  that  his  monas- 
tery —  that  of  Multifarnham  —  having  been  totallv  destroyed  by 
Sir  Francis  Shean,  and  many  monks  having  been  tilled,  he,  with 
a  few  others,  after  long  and  extraordinary  adventures,  came  back 
to  the  spot,  then  abandoned  by  the  enemy,  and  before  the  feast 
of  the  IN  ativity  of  our  Lord,  we  built  np  a  little  house  on  the  site 
of  the  monastery,  and  there  we  dwelt  who  were  left  after  the 

flight  Afterward,  Father  Xehemias  Gregan,  the  father 

guardian,  began  to  build  a  church,  and  to  repair  the  monastery, 
and  for  this  purpose  caused  much  wood  to  be  cut  in  the  terri- 
tory of  Deabhna  McLochlain  :  and  when  thev  had  roofed  a 
chapel  and  some  other  buildings,  there  came  the  soldiers  of 
another  Sir  Francis  Ringtia,  and  thev  burned  down  the  mon- 
asters again,  and  carrieo!  off  some  of  the  brethren  captive  to 
Dubl*in.'? 

This  convent  of  Multifarnham  was  raised  a  third  tune ;  and, 
in  fact,  remained  in  possession  of  the  Franciscans  throughout  the 
persecution,  so  that  to  this  day  the  old  church  has  been  restored 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


201 


by  them,  and  the  modern  house,  which  now  forms  their  convent, 
is  built  on  the  site  of  the  old  monastery. 

Such  for  a  long  time  was  the  case  with  many  other  religious 
establishments  ;  for  the  same  Father  Mooney,  writing  as  late  as 
1624,  says  :  "  When  Queen  Elizabeth  strove  to  make  all  Ireland 
fall  away  from  the  Catholic  faith,  and  a  law  was  passed  proscrib- 
ing all  the  members  of  the  religious  orders,  and  giving  their 
monasteries  and  possessions  to  the  treasury,  while  all  the  others 
took  to  flight,  or  at  least  quitted  their  houses,  and,  for  safety' 
sake,  lived  privately  and  singly  among  their  friends,  and  receiv- 
ing no  novices,  the  order  of  St.  Francis  alone  ever  remained,  as 
it  were,  unshaken.  For,  though  they  were  violently  driven  out 
of  some  convents  to  the  great  towns,  and  the  convents  were  pro- 
fanely turned  into  dwellings  for  seculars,  and  some  of  the  fathers 
suffered  violence,  and  even  death ;  yet,  in  the  country  and  other 
remote  places,  they  ever  remained  in  the  convents,  celebrating 
the  divine  office  according  to  the  custom  of  religious,  their 
preachers  preaching  to  the  people  and  performing  their  other 
functions,  training  up  novices  and  preserving  the  conventual 
buildings,  holding  it  sinful  to  lay  aside,  or  even  hide,  their  reli- 
gious habit,  though  for  an  hour,  through  any  human  fear.  And, 
every  three  years,  they  held  their  regular  provincial  chapters  in 
the  woods  of  the  neighborhood,  and  observed  the  rule  as  it  is 
kept  in  provinces  that  are  in  peace." 

Thus,  when  the  Cromwellian  persecution  began,  the  religious 
orders  were  again  flourishing  in  Ireland.  They  had  obtained 
from  the  Stuarts  some  relaxation  in  the  execution  of  the  laws, 
and,  as  all  at  the  time  were  fighting  for  Charles  I.  against  the 
Parliamentarians,  it  was  onlv  natural  that  the  authorities  did  not 
carry  out  the  barbarous  laws  to  their  full  extent  in  the  island. 

It  is  no  matter  of  great  surprise,  therefore,  that,  in  1641, 
more  than  one  hundred  vears  after  the  decree  of  Henrv  Till., 
the  Franciscan  order  still  possessed  sixty-two  flourishing  houses 
in  Ireland,  each  with  a  numerous  community,  besides  ten  con- 
vents of  nuns  of  the  order  of  St.  Clare.  The  acts  of  the  General 
Chapter  of  the  Dominicans,  held  in  Home  in  1656,  referring  to 
the  same  persecution  of  Cromwell,  state  that,  when  it  began, 
there  were  forty-three  convents  of  the  order,  containing  about 
six  hundred  inmates,  of  whom  only  one-fourth  survived  the 
calamity.  The  Jesuits  were  eighty  in  number,  in  1641,  of  whom 
only  seventeen  remained  when  the  storm  had  passed  away. 
From  a  petition  presented  to  the  Sacred  Congregation,  in  1654, 
we  learn  that  all  the  Capuchins  had  been  banished,  except  a  few 
who  remained  on  the  island,  where  they  lived  as  "  shepherds," 
"  herdsmen,"  or  "  tillers  of  the  soil." 

All  the  decrees  of  the  Parliaments  of  Henry  VJJLL  and  Eliza- 
beth had  not  succeeded,  in  the  space  of  a  century,  in  destroying 


202 


BERTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


monasticism ;  the  Cromwellian  war  alone  seemed  to  have  done 
bo,  as  it  left  the  entire  nation  almost  at  the  last  gasp,  on  the 
▼ei  ge  of  annihilation.  Nevertheless,  a  few  years  saw  the  orders 
■gun  revive  and  prepare  to  start  their  holy  work  anew.  Henry 
VlIL  then,  and  his  vicar,  Cromwell,  deceived  themselves  in 
thinking  that  they  had  pnt  an  end  to  monasticism  in  the  land 
which  had  been  the  cradle  of  so  many  families  of  religious. 
They  succeeded  only  in  intensifying  the  determination  of  Irish- 
men not  to  allow  their  nationalitv  to  be  absorbed  in  that  of  Eng- 
land.  If  any  thing  was  calculated  to  nourish  and  keep  alive  that 
sentiment  in  their  hearts,  it  was  their  daily  communing  with  the 
holy  men  who  shared  their  distress,  their  mountain-retreats,  their 
poverty  in  the  bogs,  their  wretchedness  in  the  woods  and  glens. 
If  monasticism  had  created  and  nurtured  the  nation  on  its  first 
becoming  Christian,  it  gave  to  the  people  a  second  birth  holier 
than  the  first,  because  consecrated  by  martyrdom.  Henceforth, 
divided  clans  and  antagonistic  septs  were  to  be  unknown  among 
them :  only  Catholic  Irishmen  were  to  remain  ranked  around 
the  successors  of  "  the  saints n  of  old,  all  determined  to  be  what 
they  were,  or  die.  But  as  laws,  edicts,  and  measures  of  fanatic 
frenzy  cannot  destroy  a  nation,  the  new  people  was  destined  to 
survive  for  better  and  brighter  days. 

TVe  have  anticipated  the  course  of  events  somewhat,  in  order 
to  pass  in  review  the  chief  facts  connected  with  the  designs  of 
the  English  Government  upon  the  religious  orders.  These  few 
words  will  suffice  to  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  new  character 
which  such  events  impressed  upon  the  Irish  nation.  Every  day 
saw  it  more  compact ;  every  day  the  resolve  to  fight  to  the  death 
for  Godrs  cause,  grew  stronger ;  the  old  occasions  of  division 
grew  less  and  less,  and  that  unanimity,  which  suffering  for  a 
noble  cause  naturally  gives  rise  to  in  the  human  heart,  showed 
itself  more  and  more.  A  nation,  in  truth,  was  being  born  in  the 
throes  of  a  wide-spread  and  long-continued  calamity ;  but  long 
ages  were  in  store  in  times  to  come  to  reward  it  for  the  misfor- 
tunes of  the  past. 

It  is  a  remarkable  thing  that,  when  England,  through  fear  of 
civil  war,  was  compelled  to  grant  Catholic  emancipation  in  1S29, 
when  Irish  agitators  succeeded  in  wrenching  it  from  the  enemv, 
and  obtaining  it,  not  only  for  themselves,  but  likewise  for  their 
English  Catholic  brethren,  the  British  statesmen,  who  finally  con- 
sented to  such  a  tardy  measure  of  justice,  steadily  refused,  never- 
theless, to  extend  the  boon  to  the  religious  orders.  These  re- 
mained under  the  ban,  and  so  they  remain  stilL  The  "  penal 
laws  "  were  never  repealed  for  them,  and,  even  to  this  day,  they 
are,  according  to  law,  strictly  prohibited  from  "  receiving  nov- 
ices" under  all  the  barbarous  penalties  formerly  enacted  and 
never  abrogated. 


BIRTH  OF  A  PEOPLE. 


203 


But  the  nation  lias  constantly  considered  this  exception  as 
not  to  be  taken  into  account.  The  religious  orders  now  existing 
are  under  the  protection  of  the  people,  and  England  has  never 
dared  to  use  even  a  threat  against  the  open  violation  of  these 
"  laws."  Dr.  Madden,  in  his  interesting  work  on  "  Penal  Laws," 
gives  prominence  to  this  fact  by  warmly  taking  up  the  old  theme 
of  thorough-going  Irish  Catholicity,  by  asserting,  with  force,  that 
"  religious  orders  are  necessary  to  the  Church,"  and  that  to  deny 
their  right  to  exist,  even  though  it  be  only  on  paper  in  the  stat- 
ute-book, is  none  the  less  an  outrage  against  so  thoroughly 
Catholic  a  nation  as  the  Irish. 

The  only  fact  which  appears  to  clash  with  our  reflections  is 
the  one  well  ascertained  and  mentioned  by  us,  that  some  native 
Irish  lords  occupied  certain  monasteries  and  took  their  share  in 
the  sacrilegious  plunder.  But  a  few  chieftains  cannot  be  said  to 
constitute  the  nation,  and  doubtless  many  of  those  who  yielded 
to  the  temptation,  listened  later  to  the  reproving  voice  of  their 
conscience,  as  in  the  following  case,  given  by  Miles  O'Reilly,  in 
his  "  Irish  Martyrs  :  " 

"  Gelasius  O'Cullenan,  born  of  a  noble  family  in  Connaught 
.  .  .  joined  the  Cistercian  order.  Having  completed  his  studies 
in  Paris,  the  monastery  of  Boyle  was  destined  as  the  field  of  his 
labors.  Qn  his  arrival  in  Ireland,  he  found  that  the  monastery, 
with  its  property,  had  been  seized  on  by  one  of  the  neighboring 

f entry,  who  was  sheltered  in  his  usurpation  by  the  edict  of 
Ilizabeth.  The  abbot  .  .  .  went  boldly  to  the  usurping  noble- 
man, admonishing  him  of  the  guilt  he  had  incurred,  and  the 
malediction  of  Heaven,  which  he  would  assuredly  draw  down 
upon  his  family.  Moved  by  his  exhortations,  the  nobleman  re- 
stored to  him  the  full  possession  of  the  monastery  and  lands ; 
and,  some  time  after,  contemplating  the  holy  life  of  its  inmates, 
.  .  .  he,  too,  renounced  the  world  and  joined  the  religious  insti- 
tute." 


CHAPTEK  IX. 


THE   IRISH   AND   THE   T ODORS. — ELIZABETH. — THE  UNDAUNTED 
NOBILITY.  THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 

On  January  12,  1559,  in  the  second  year  of  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  a  Parliament  was  convened  in  Dublin  to  pass  the  Act 
of  Supremacy ;  that  is  to  say,  to  establish  Lutheranism  in  Ire- 
land, as  had  already  been  done  in  England,  under  the  garb  of 
Episcopalianism . 

But  the  attempt  was  fated  to  encounter  a  more  determined 
opposition  in  Dublin  than  it  had  in  London. 

Sir  James  Ware  says,  in  reference  to  it :  "  At  the  very  begin- 
ning of  this  Parliament,  her  Majestie's  well-wishers  found  that 
most  of  the  nobility  and  Commons — they  were  all  English  by 
blood  or  birth — were  divided  in  opinion  about  the  ecclesiastical 
government,  which  caused  the  Earl  of  Sussex  (Lord  Deputy)  to 
dissolve  them,  and  to  go  over  to  England  to  confer  with  her  Ma- 
jesty about  the  affairs  of  this  kingdom. 

"  These  differences  were  occasioned  bv  the  several  alterations 
which  had  happened  in  ecclesiastical  matters  within  the  compass 
of  twelve  years. 

"  1.  King  Henry  Till,  held  the  ecclesiastical  supremacy  with 
the  first-fruits  and  tenths,  maintaining  the  seven  sacraments^ 
with  obits  and  mass  for  the  living  and  the  dead. 

"  2.  King  Edward  abolished  the  mass,  authorizing  the  book 
of  common  prayers,  and  the  consecration  of  the  bread  and  wine 
in  the  English  tongue,  and  establishing  only  two  sacraments. 

"  3.  Queen  Mary,  after  King  Edward's  decease,  brought  all 
back  again  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  the  papal  obedience. 

"  4.  Queen  Elizabeth,  on  her  first  Parliament  in  England, 
took  away  the  Pope's  supremacy,  reserving  the  tenths  and  first- 
fruits  to  her  heirs  and  successors.  She  put  down  the  mass,  and, 
for  a  general  uniformity  of  worship  in  her  dominions,  as  well  in 
England  as  in  Ireland,  she  established  the  book  of  common  pray- 
ers, and  forbade  the  use  of  popish  ceremonies." 

Such  is  the  very  lucid  sketch  furnished  by  Ware  of  the 


TIIE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


205 


changes  wliich  had  taken  place  in  religion  in  England  within  the 
brief  space  of  twelve  years. 

The  members  of  the  Irish  Parliament,  although  of  English 
descent,  could  not  so  easily  reconcile  themselves  to  these  rapid 
changes  as  their  fellows  in  England  had  done  ;  in  fact,  they  laid 
claim  to  a  conscience — a  thing  seemingly  unknown  to  the  Eng- 
lish members,  or,  if  known  at  all,  of  an  exceedingly  elastic  and 
slippery  nature.  Here  lay  the  difficulty :  how  was  it  to  be  over- 
come ?  The  conversation  between  Elizabeth  and  Sussex  must 
have  been  of  a  very  interesting  character. 

Returning  with  private  instructions  from  the  queen,  the  Earl 
of  Sussex  again  convened  the  Parliament,  which  only  consisted 
of  the  so  called  representatives  of  ten  counties — Dublin,  Meath, 
West  Meath,  Louth,  Kildare,  Carlow,  Kilkenny,  Waterford,  Tip- 
perary,  and  Wexford.  We  see  that  the  almost  total  extinction 
of  the  Kildare  branch  of  the  Geraldines  had  extended  the  Eng- 
lish Pale.  The  other  deputies  were  citizens  and  burgesses  of 
those  towns  in  which  the  royal  authority  predominated.  "  With 
such  an  assembly,"  says  Leland,  "  it  is  little  wonder  that,  in  de- 
spite of  clamor  and  opposition,  in  a  session  of  a  few  weeks,  the 
whole  ecclesiastical  system  of  Queen  Mary  was  entirely  re- 
versed." It  is  needless  to  remark  that  the  people  had  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  this  reversal ;  it  merely  looked  on,  or  was 
already  organizing  for  resistance. 

Nevertheless,  even  in  that  assembly  the  queen's  agents  were 
obliged  to  have  recourse  to  fraud  and  deception,  in  order  to 
carry  her  measures,  and  it  cannot  be  said  that  they  obtained  a 
majority. 

"  The  proceedings,"  according  to  Mr.  Haverty,  "  are  involved 
in  mystery,  and  the  principal  measures  are  believed  to  have  been 
carried  by  means  fraudulent  and  clandestine."  And,  in  a  note, 
he  adds  :  "  It  is  said  that  the  Earl  of  Sussex,  to  calm  the  protests 
which  were  made  in  Parliament,  when  it  was  found  that  the  law 
had  been  passed  by  a  few  members  assembled  privately,  pledged 
himself  solemnly  that  this  statute  would  not  be  enforced  gener- 
ally on  laymen  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth."  1 

Whatever  the  means  adopted  to  introduce  and  carry  out  the 
new  policy,  it  was  certainly  enacted  that  "  the  queen  was  the 
head  of  the  Church  of  Ireland,  the  reformed  worship  was  rees- 
tablished as  under  Edward  VI.,  and  the  book  of  common  pray- 
ers, with  further  alterations,  was  reintroduced.  A  fine  of  twelve 
pence  was  imposed  on  every  person  who  should  not  attend  the 
new  service,  for  each  offence  ;  bishops  were  to  be  appointed  only 
by  the  queen,  and  consecrated  at  her  bidding.    All  officers  and 

Dr.  Curry,  in  his  *  Civil  Wars,"  has  collected  some  curious  facts  in  illustration 
of  this  point. 


206 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


ministers,  ecclesiastical  or  lay,  were  bound  to  take  the  oath  of 
supremacy,  under  pain  of  forfeiture  or  incapacity  ;  and  any  one 
who  maintained  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Pope  was  to  for- 
feit, for  his  first  offence,  all  his  estates,  real  and  personal,  or  be 
imprisoned  for  one  year,  if  not  worth  twenty  pounds ;  for  the 
second  offence,  to  be  liable  to  prasmunire;  and  for  the  third, 
to  be  guilty  of  high-treason." 

It  was  understood  that  those  laws  would  be  strictly  enforced 
against  all  priests  and  friars,  though  left  generally  inoperative 
for  lay  people  ;  and,  with  certain  exceptions,  mentioned  by  Dr. 
Curry,  such  was  the  rule  observed.  Thus,  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
which  was  such  a  cruel  one  for  ecclesiastics,  produced  few  mar- 
tyrs among  the  laity  in  Ireland.  And,  for  this  reason,  Sir  James 
Ware  is  able  to  boast  that,  in  all  the  "rebellions"  of  the  Irish 
against  Elizabeth,  they  falsely  complained  that  their  freedom  of 
worship  was  curtailed,  as  though  they  could  worship  without 
either  priests  or  churches. 

But  the  law  was  passed  which  made  it  "  high-treason "  to 
assert,  three  times  in  succession,  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the 
Pope ;  and,  henceforth,  whoever  should  suffer  in  defence  of  that 
Catholic  dogma,  was  to  be  a  traitor  and  not  a  martyr. 

The  woman,  seated  on  the  English  throne,  speedily  discov- 
ered that  it  was  not  so  easy  a  matter  to  change  the  religion  of 
the  Irish  as  it  had  been  to  subvert  completely  that  of  her  own 
people. 

Deprived  of  religious  houses  and  means  of  instruction,  de- 
prived of  priests  and  churches,  no  communication  with  Home 
save  by  stealth,  the  Irish  still  showed  their  oppressors  that  their 
consciences  were  free,  and  that  no  acts  of  Parliament  or  sen- 
tences of  iniquitous  tribunals  could  prevent  their  remaining 
Catholics. 

By  promising  to  deal  as  lightly  with  the  laity  as  severely 
with  the  clergy,  Elizabeth  felt  confident  that  the  Catholic  reli- 
gion would  soon  perish  in  Ireland,  and  that,  with  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  priests,  the  churches,  sacraments,  instruction,  and 
open  communion  with  Pome,  would  also  disappear.  To  all 
seeming,  her  surmises  were  correct ;  but  the  people  were  silently 
gathering  and  uniting  together  as  they  had  never  done  before. 

The  whole  of  Elizabeth's  Irish  policy  may  be  comprised  un- 
der two  headings  :  1.  Her  policy  toward  the  nobles,  apparently 
one  of  compromise  and  toleration,  but  really  one  of  destruction, 
and  so  rightly  did  they  understand  it  that  they  rose  and  called 
in  foreign  aid  to  their  assistance  ;  2.  Her  church  policy,  one  of 
blood  and  total  overthrow,  which  priests  and  people,  now  united 
forever  in  the  same  great  cause,  resisted  from  the  outset,  and 
finally  defeated ;  and  the  decrees  of  high-treason,  which  were 
tarried  out  with  frightful  barbarity,  only  served  to  confirm  the 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


207 


Irish  people  in  that  unanimity  which  the  wily  dealings  of  Henry 
VIII.  had  originated. 

I.  With  the  nobility  Elizabeth  hoped  to  succeed  by  flattery, 
cunning,  deceit,  finally  by  treachery,  and  sowing  dissension 
among  them  ;  but  all  her  efforts  only  served  to  knit  them  more 
firmly  one  to  another,  and  to  revive  among  them  the  true  spirit 
of  nationality  and  patriotism. 

She  did  not  state  to  them  that  her  great  object  was  to  destroy 
the  Catholic  Church ;  neverthless  they  should  have  felt  and  re- 
sented it  from  the  beginning ;  above  all,  ought  they  to  have  given 
expression  to  the  contempt  they  entertained  for  the  bait  held  out 
to  them  that  the  "  laws  "  would  not  be  executed  against  them, 
but  against  Churchmen  only.  Had  they  been  truly  animated 
by  the  feelings  which  already  possessed  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
they  would  have  scornfuly  rejected  the  compromise  proposed. 

But  she  appeared  to  allow  them  perfect  freedom  in  religious 
matters  ;  she  subjected  them  to  no  oath,  as  in  England  ;  the  new 
laws  were  a  dead  letter  as  far  as  regarded  the  native  lords,  who 
lived  under  other  laws  and  remained  silent,  as  with  the  lords  of 
the  Pale.  Yet  nothing  was  of  such  importance  in  her  eyes  as 
the  enforcement  of  those  decrees  ;  consequently,  she  could  only 
accomplish  her  designs  by  deceit.  George  Browne,  the  first 
Protestant  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  had  predicted  that  the  old 
Irish  race  and  the  Anglo-Irish  chieftains  would  unite1  and  com- 
bine with  Continental  powers  in  order  to  establish  their  inde- 
pendence. The  whole  policy  of  Elizabeth's  reign  would  give  us 
reason  to  believe  that  she  rightly  understood  the  deep  remark  of 
the  worldly  heretic.  Hence,  although  (or,  rather,  because)  the 
north,  Ulster,  was  at  that  time  the  stronghold  of  Catholic  feel- 
ing, and  the  O'JSTeills  and  O'Donnells  its  leaders,  she  flatters 
them,  has  them  brought  to  her  court,  pardons  several  "  rebel- 
lions "  of  Shane  the  Proud,  and  afterward  loads  with  her  favors 
the  young  Hugh  of  Tyrone,  whom  she  kept  at  her  own  court. 
She  would  dazzle  them  by  the  splendor  of  that  court,  by  the 
royal  presents  she  so  royally  lavishes  upon  them,  and  by  the 
prospect  of  greater  favors  still  to  come.  Meanwhile  on  the 
south  she  turns  a  stern  eye,  and  makes  up  her  mind  to  destroy 
what  is  left  of  the  Geraldine  family.  This  was  to  be  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war  of  extermination,  and  the  nobility  which  at  the 
time  was  disunited  became  firmly  consolidated  shortly  after. 

It  is  needless  to  go  into  the  glorious  and  romantic  history  of 
the  Geraldine  family.  Elizabeth  chose  them  for  the  first  object 
of  her  attack,  because  they,  as  Anglo-Irish  Catholics,  were  more 
odious  in  her  eye  than  the  pure  Irish. 

She  knew  that  the  then  Earl  of  Desmond  had  escaped  almost 
by  miracle  from  the  island  with  his  younger  brother  John,  when 
the  rest  of  the  noble  stock  had  been  butchered  at  Tyburn.  She 


208 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


knew  that  Gerald,  after  many  wanderings,  had  finally  reached 
Rome,  been  educated  under  the  care  of  his  kinsman,  Cardinal 
Pole,  cherished  as  a  dear  son  by  the  reigning  Pontiff,  had  subse- 
quently appeared  at  the  Tuscan  court  of  Cosmo  de  Medici ;  that 
consequently,  since  his  return  to  Ireland,  he  might  be  considered 
the  chief  of  the  Catholic  party  there,  although,  to  save  himself 
from  attainder  and  hold  possession  of  his  immense  wealth  in 
Munster,  he  displayed  the  greatest  reserve  in  all  his  actions,  ap- 
peared to  respect  the  orders  of  the  queen  in  all  things,  even  in 
ner  external  policy  against  the  Church  ;  so  that  if  priests  were 
entertained  in  his  castles,  it  was  always  by  stealth,  and  they  were 
compelled  to  lead  a  life  of  total  retirement. 

But,  despite  all  this  outward  show,  Elizabeth  knew  that  Ger- 
ald was  really  a  sincere  Catholic,  that  he  considered  himself  a 
sovereign  prince,  and  would  consequently  have  small  scruple 
about  entering  into  a  league  against  her,  not  only  with  the 
northern  Irish  chieftains,  but  even  with  the  Catholic  princes  of 
the  Continent.    She  resolved,  therefore,  to  destroy  him. 

Sidney  was  sent  to  Ireland  as  lord-lieutenant.  He  travelled 
first  through  all  Munster,  and  complained  bitterly  that  the  Irish 
chieftains  were  destroying  the  country  by  their  divisions;  though 
perfectly  conscious  that  those  divisions  were  secretly  encouraged 
by  England.  He  appeared  to  listen  to  the  people,  when  they  com- 
plained of  their  lords,  and  yet  at  the  holding  of  assizes  he  hanged 
this  same  people  on  the  flimsiest  pretexts,  and  had  them  exe- 
cuted wholesale.  In  one  of  his  dispatches  to  the  home  govern- 
ment, he  makes  complacent  allusion  to  the  countless  executions 
which  accompanied  his  triumphant  progress  through  Munster : 
"  I  wrote  not,"  he  says,  "  the  name  of  each  particular  varlet  that 
has  died  since  I  arrived,  as  well  by  the  ordinary  course  of  the 
law,  and  the  martial  law,  as  flat  fighting  with  them,  when  they 
would  take  food  without  the  good-will  of  the  giver  :  for  I  think 
it  is  no  stuff  worthy  the  loading  of  my  letters  with ;  but  I  do 
assure  you,  the  number  of  them  is  great,  and  some  of  the  best, 
and  the  rest  tremble.  For  the  most  part  they  fight  for  their 
dinner,  and  many  of  them  lose  their  heads  before  they  are  served 
with  supper.  Down  they  go  in  every  corner,  and  down  they 
shall  go,  God  willing." — (Sidney's  Dispatches,  Br.  M.) 

This  was  the  man  who  announced  himself  as  the  avenger  of 
the  people  on  their  rulers.  He  complained  chiefly  of  Gerald  of 
Desmond,  and,  without  any  pretext,  summoned  him  with  his 
brother  John,  carried  them  prisoners  to  Dublin,  and  afterward 
sent  them  to  the  Tower  of  London.  The  shanachy  of  the  family 
relates  that  then,  and  then  only,  Gerald  sent  a  private  message 
to  his  kinsmen  and  retainers,  appointing  his  cousin  James,  son 
of  Maurice,  known  as  James  Fitzmaurice,  the  head  and  leader  in 
his  family  during  his  own  absence. 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


209 


"  For  James,"  says  the  shanachy,  "  was  well  known  for  his 
attachment  to  the  ancient  faith,  no  less  than  for  his  valor  and 
chivalry,  and  gladly  did  the  people  of  old  Desmond  receive  these 
commands,  and  inviolable  was  their  attachment  to  him  who  was 
now  their  appointed  chieftain." 

James  began  directly  to  organize  the  memorable  "  Geraldine 
League,"  upon  the  fortunes  of  which,  for  years,  the  attention  of 
Christendom  was  fixed. 

This,  the  first  open  treaty  of  Irish  lords  with  the  Pope,  as  a 
sovereign  prince,  and  with  the  King  of  Spain,  calls  for  a  few 
remarks  on  the  right  of  the  Irish  to  declare  open  war  with 
England,  and  choose  their  own  friends  and  allies,  without  being 
rebels. 

The  English  were  at  this  very  time  so  conscious  of  the  weak- 
ness of  their  title  to  the  sovereignty  of  Ireland,  that  they  were 
continually  striving  to  prop  up  their  claims  by  the  most  absurd 
pretensions. 

In  the  posthumous  act  of  attainder  against  Shane  O'Xeill  in 
the  Irish  Parliament  of  1569,  Elizabeth's  ministers  affected  to 
trace  her  title  to  the  realm  of  Ireland  back  to  a  period  an- 
terior to  the  Milesian  race  of  kings.  They  invented  a  ridiculous 
story  of  a  "  King  Gurniondus,"  son  to  the  noble  King  Belan  of 
Great  Britain,  who  was  lord  of  Bay  on  in  Spain — they  probably 
meant  Bayonne  in  France — as  were  many  of  his  successors  down 
to  the  time  of  Henry  II.,  who  possessed  the  island  after  the 
"  comeing  of  Irishmen  into  the  same  lande." — (Haverty,  Irish 
Statutes,  2  Eliz.,  sess.  3,  cap.  i.) 

These  learned  men  who  flourished  in  the  golden  reign  of 
Elizabeth  must  have  thought  the  Irish  very  easily  imposed  upon 
if  they  imagined  they  could  give  ear  to  such  a  fabrication,  at  a 
time  when  each  great  family  had  its  own  chronicler  to  trace  its 
pedigree  back  to  the  very  source  of  the  race  of  Miledh. 

The  title  of  conquest,  at  that  time  a  valid  one  in  all  countries, 
had  no  value  with  the  Irish  who  never  had  been  and  never 
admitted  themselves  to  have  been  conquered.  Had  they  not 
preserved  their  own  laws,  customs,  language,  local  governments  ? 
Had  the  English  ever  even  attempted  to  subject  them  to  their 
laws  ?  They  had  openly  refused  to  grant  their  pretended  bene- 
fits to  those  few  "  degenerate  Irishmen  "  who  in  sheer  despair 
had  applied  for  them.  This  policy  of  separation  was  adopted  by 
England  with  the  view  of  "  rooting  out "  the  Irish.  The  English 
Government  could  therefore  only  accept  the  natural  consequence 
of  such  a  system — that  the  Irish  race  should  be  left  to  itself,  in 
the  full  enjoyment  of  its  own  laws  and  local  governments. 

The  very  policy  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth,  as  displayed 
in  their  attempt  to  break  down  the  clans  by  favoring  "  well-dis- 
posed Irishmen  "  and  setting  them  up,  by  fraudulent  elections,  as 
14 


210 


THE  SUFFERING  CHUECH. 


chiefs  of  the  various  septs,  proves  that  the  English  themselves 
admitted  the  clans  to  be  real  nations — nationes — as  they  were 
called  at  the  time  by  Irish  chroniclers  and  by  English  writers 
even.  It  was  an  acknowledgment  of  the  plain  fact  that  the  na- 
tives possessed  and  exercised  their  own  laws  of  succession  and 
election,  their  own  government  and  autonomy. 

The  disappearance  of  the  Ard-Pigh,  who  had  held  the  titular 
power  over  the  whole  country,  is  no  proof  that  the  Irish  pos- 
sessed no  government  :  for  they  themselves  had  refused  for  sev- 
eral centuries  to  acknowledge  his  power.  The  island  was  split 
up  into  several  small  independent  states,  each  with  the  right  of 
levying  war,  and  making  peace  and  alliance.  Gillapatrick,  of 
Ossory,  dispatched  his  ambassador  to  Henry  VIII.  to  announce 
that  if  he,  the  English  king,  did  not  prevent  his  deputy,  Pufus 
Pierce,  of  Dublin,  from  annoying  the  clans  of  Ossory,  Gillapat- 
rick would,  in  self-defence,  declare  war  against  the  King  of  Eng- 
land. And  the  imperious  Henry  Tudor,  instead  of  laughing  at 
the  threat  of  the  chieftain,  was  shrewd  enough  to  recognize  its 
significance,  and  prevented  it  being  carried  into  execution  by 
admitting  the  cause  as  valid,  and  submitting  the  conduct  of  his 
deputy  to  an  investigation. 

Moreover,  the  principles  by  which  Christendom  had  been 
ruled  for  centuries,  were  just  then  being  broken  up  by  the  ad- 
vent of  Protestantism  ;  and  novel  theories  were  being  introduced 
for  the  government  of  modern  nations.  What  were  the  old 
principles,  and  what  the  new  ;  and  how  stood  Ireland  with  re- 
spect to  each  ? 

In  the  old  organization  of  Christendom,  the  key-stone  of  the 
whole  political  edifice  was  the  papacy.  Up  to  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, the  Sovereign  Pontiff  had  been  acknowledged  by  all 
Christian  nations  as  supreme  arbiter  in  international  questions, 
and  if  England  did  possess  any  shadow  of  authority  over  Ireland, 
it  was  owing  to  former  decisions  of  popes,  who,  being  misin- 
formed, had  allowed  the  Anglo-Norman  kings  to  establish  their 
power  in  the  island.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  bull  of 
Adrian  IV.,  this  much  is  certain  :  we  do  not  pretend  to  solve 
that  vexed  historical  problem. 

But,  by  rebelling  against  Pome,  by  rejecting  the  title  of  the 
Pope,  England  threw  away  even  that  claim,  and  by  the  bull  of 
excommunication,  issued  against  Elizabeth,  the  Irish  were  re-, 
leased  from  their  allegiance  to  her,  supposing  that  such  allegi- 
ance had  existed,  solely  built  upon  this  claim. 

So  well  was  this  understood  at  the  time,  that  the  Poman 
Pontiffs,  as  rulers  of  the  Papal  States,  the  Emperors  of  Ger- 
manv,  as  heads  of  the  German  Empire,  and  the  Kings  of  Spain 
and  France,  alwavs  covertly  and  sometimes  openly  received  the 
envoys  of  O'Neill,  Desmond,  and  O'Donnell,  and  openly  dis- 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


211 


patched  troops  and  fleets  to  assist  the  Irish  in  their  struggle  for 
their  de  facto  independence. 

All  this  was  in  perfect  accordance,  not  merely  with  the  au- 
thority which  Catholic  powers  still  recognized  in  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff,  but  even  with  the  new  order  of  things  which  Protestant- 
ism had  introduced  into  Western  Europe,  and  which  England, 
as  henceforth  a  leading  Protestant  power,  had  accepted  and 
eagerly  embraced.  By  the  rejection  of  the  supreme  arbitration 
of  the  Popes,  on  the  part  of  the  new  heretics,  Europe  lost  its 
unity  as  Christendom,  and  naturally  formed  itself  into  two 
leagues,  the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant.  An  oppressed  Catholic 
nationality,  above  all  a  weak  and  powerless  one,  had  therefore 
the  right  of  appeal  to  the  great  Catholic  powers  for  help  against 
oppression.  And  the  pretension  of  England  to  the  possession  of 
Ireland  was  the  very  essence  of  oppression  and  tyranny  in  itself, 
doubly  aggravated  by  the  fact  of  an  apostate  and  vicious  king  or 
queen  making  it  treason  for  a  people,  utterly  separate  and  distinct 
from  theirs,  to  hold  fast  to  its  ancient  and  revered  religion. 

Who  can  say,  then,  that  Gregory  XIII.  was  guilty  of  injustice 
and  of  abetting  rebellion  when,  in  1578,  he  furnished  James  Fitz- 
maurice,  the  great  Geraldine,  with  a  fleet  and  army  to  fight  against 
Elizabeth  ?  The  authority  greatest  in  Catholic  eyes,  and  most 
worthy  of  respect  in  the  eyes  of  all  impartial  men — the  Pope — ■ 
thus  endorsed  the  patent  fact  that  Ireland  was  an  independent 
nation,  and  could  wage  war  against  her  oppressors.  Here  we  have 
a  stand-point  from  which  to  argue  the  question  for  future  times. 

The  rash  or,  perhaps,  treacherous  share  taken  by  a  few  Irish 
chieftains,  in  the  schismatical  and  heretical  as  well  as  unpatriotic 
decrees  of  the  Parliament  of  1511,  and  in  the  subsequent  ones  of 
1549,  could  compromise  the  Irish  nation  in  nowise,  inasmuch 
as  the  people,  being  still  even  in  legal  enjoyment  of  their  own 
government,  their  chieftains  possessed  no  authority  to  decide  on 
6uch  questions  without  the  full  concurrence  of  their  clans,  and 
these  had  already  pronounced,  clearly  enough  and  unmistakably, 
on  the  return  of  their  lords  from  their  title-hunting  expedition 
in  England. 

All  the  chroniclers  of  the  time  agree  that  "  the  people  "  was 
invariably  sound  in  faith,  siding  with  the  chieftains  wherever 
they  rose  in  opposition  to  oppressive  decrees,  abandoning  them 
when  they  showed  signs  of  wavering,  even ;  but,  above  all,  when 
they  ranged  themselves  with  the  oppressors  of  the  Church.  The 
English  Protestant  writers  of  the  period  confirm  this  honorable 
testimony  of  the  Irish  bards,  by  constantly  accusing  the  natives 
of  a  "  rebellious  "  spirit. 

The  history  of  the  Geraldine  struggle  is  known  to  all  readers 
of  Irish  history,  and  does  not  enter  into  the  scope  of  these 
pages.    We  have,  however,  to  consider  the  foreign  aid  which 


212 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH, 


the  chieftains  received,  from  Spain  chiefly,  and  the  causes  of  these 
failures,  which  at  first  would  seem  to  argue  a  lack  of  firmness  on 
the  part  of  the  Irish  themselves.  During  the  Geraldine  wars, 
and  later  on  in  what  is  called  the  rebellion  of  Hugh  O'Neill  and 
Hugh  O'Donnell,  the  King  of  Spain  sent  vessels  and  troops  to 
the  assistance  of  the  Irish.  All  these  expeditions  failed,  and  the 
destruction  of  the  natives  was  far  greater  than  it  might  other- 
wise have  been,  in  consequence  of  the  greater  number  of  English 
troops  sent  to  Ireland  to  face  the  expected  Spanish  invasion. 

The  same  ill  success  attended  the  French  fleet  and  army  dis- 
patched to  Limerick  by  Louis  XIY.  to  assist  James  IL,  and,  later 
still,  the  large  fleet  and  well-appointed  troops  sent  by  the  French 
Convention  to  the  aid  of  the  "  United  Irishmen,"  in  1798. 

In  like  manner,  the  Vendeans,  on  the  other  side,  those  French 
"  rebels  "  against  the  Convention  itself,  received  their  death-blow 
in  consequence  of  the  English  who  were  sent  to  their  succor  at 
Quiberon. 

It  seems,  indeed,  a  universal  historic  law  that,  when  a  nation 
or  a  party  in  a  nation  struggles  against  another,  the  almost  in- 
variable consequence  of  foreign  aid  is  failure;  but  no  conclusion 
can  be  deduced  from  that  fact  of  lack  of  bravery,  steadfastness, 
even  ultimate  success,  on  the  part  of  those  who  rise  in  arms 
against  oppression.  Of  the  many  causes  which  may  be  assigned 
to  that  apparently  strange  law  of  history,  the  chief  are : 

1.  The  difficulty  of  effecting  a  joint  and  simultaneous  effort 
between  the  insurgent  forces  and  the  distant  friendly  power. 
Help  comes  either  too  soon  or  too  late,  or  lands  on  a  point  of 
the  coast  where  aid  is  worse  than  useless,  and  where  it  only 
throws  confusion  into  the  ranks  of  the  struggling  native  forces, 
whose  plans  are  thus  all  disarranged,  disconcerted,  and  thrown 
into  confusion.  Add  to  this  the  dangers  of  the  sea,  the  possibly 
insufficient  knowledge  of  the  soundings  and  of  the  nature  of  the 
coast,  the  differences  of  spirit,  customs,  and  language,  of  the  two 
coalescing  forces,  and  it  may  be  easily  concluded  that  the  chances 
of  success,  as  opposed  to  those  of  failure,  are  but  scanty. 

2.  The  forces  against  which  the  coalition  is  made  are  always 
immeasurably  increased  for  the  very  purpose  of  meeting  it,  its 
purport  being  always  known  beforehand.  In  the  case  under  con- 
sideration, it  were  easy  to  show  that  Elizabeth  was  prompted  by 
the  fear  of  Spain  to  be  speedy  in  crushing  the  attempted  "  re- 
bellions "  in  the  south  and  north.  Historians  have  made  a  com- 
putation of  the  troops  dispatched  from  England  by  the  queen, 
and  of  the  treasure  spent  in  these  expeditions  during  her  reign, 
and  the  result  is  astonishing  for  the  times.  In  fact,  the  whole 
strength  of  England  was  brought  into  requisition  for  the  purpose 
of  overpowering  Ireland. 

In  our  own  day§,  the  successful  insurrection  of  Greece  against 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


213 


Turkey  seems  at  variance  with  these  considerations.  But  the 
independence  of  the  Greeks  was  brought  about  rather  by  the 
unanimous  voice  of  Europe  coercing  Turkey  than  by  the  few 
troops  sent  from  France,  or  by  the  few  English  or  Poles  who  vol- 
unteered their  aid  to  the  insurgents. 

The  remarks  we  have  made  may  be  further  corroborated  by 
the  reflection  that  the  successful  risings  of  oppressed  nationalities, 
recorded  in  modern  history,  were  wholly  effected  by  the  unaided 
forces  of  the  insurgents.  Thus,  the  seven  cantons  of  Switzerland 
succeeded  against  Austria,  the  Yenetian  Republic  against  the 
barbarians  of  the  North,  the  Portuguese  in  the  Braganza  revolu- 
tion against  Spain,  and  the  United  Provinces  of  the  Low  Coun- 
tries against  Spain  and  Germany. 

The  only  historical  instance  which  may  contravene  this  gen- 
eral rule  is  found  in  the  Revolution  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  where  the  French  cooperation  was  timely  and  of  real 
use,  chiefly  because  the  foreign  aid  was  placed  entirely  under  the 
control  and  at  the  command  of  the  supreme  head  of  the  colonists, 
General  Washington. 

These  few  words  suffice  for  our  purpose. 

The  policy  of  Elizabeth  toward  the  Irish  nobility  is  well 
known  to  our  readers.  The  fate  of  the  house  of  Desmond  was, 
in  her  mind,  sealed  from  the  beginning.  It  is  now  an  ascer- 
tained fact  that  she  drove  the  great  earl  into  rebellion,  who,  for 
a  long  time,  refused  openly  to  avow  his  approbation  of  the  con- 
federates' schemes,  and  even  seemed  at  first  to  cooperate  with 
the  queen's  forces  in  opposition  to  them.  It  was  only  after  his 
cousin  Fitzmaurice  and  his  brother  John  had  been  almost  ruined 
that,  convinced  of  the  determination  of  the  English  Government 
to  seize  and  occupy  Munster  with  his  five  or  six  millions  of  acres, 
he  boldly  stood  up  for  his  faith  and  his  country,  and  perished 
in  the  attempt. 

It  was  then  that  "Protestant  plantations"  began  in  Ireland. 
The  confiscated  estates  of  Desmond — which,  in  reality,  did  not 
belong  to  him  but  to  his  tribe — were  handed  over  to  companies 
of  u  planters  out  of  Devonshire,  Dorsetshire,  and  Somersetshire, 
out  of  Lancashire  and  Cheshire,  organized  for  defence  and  to  be 
supported  by  standing  forces." — {Prendergast.) 

Then  the  work  set  on  foot  by  Henry  II.  in  favor  of  Strong- 
bow,  De  Lacy,  De  Courcy,  and  others,  was  resumed,  after  an  in- 
terval of  four  hundred  years,  to  be  carried  through  to  the  end  ; 
that  is  to  say,  to  the  complete  pauperizing  of  the  native  race. 

Among  the  "  undertakers  "  and  "  planters  "  introduced  into 
Munster  by  Elizabeth,  a  word  may  not  be  out  of  place  on  Ed- 
mund Spenser  and  Walter  Raleigh,  the  first  a  great  poet,  the 
second  a  great  warrior  and  courtier.  They  both  united  in  advo- 
cating the  extermination  of  the  native  race,  a  policy  which  Henry 


2U 


THE  SUFFERING  CHTECH. 


VIII.  was  too  high-minded  to  accept,  and  Elizabeth  too  great  a 
despiser  of  "  the  people "  to  notice.  To  Henry  and  Elizabeth 
Tudor  the  people  was  nothing ;  the  nobility  every  thing.  Spen- 
ser, Raleigh,  and  other  Englishmen  of  note,  who  came  into  daily 
contact  with  the  nation,  saw  verv  well  that  account  should  be 
taken  of  it,  and  thought,  as  Sir  John  Davies  had  thought  before 
them,  that  it  ought  to  be  "  rooted  out."  That  great  question  of 
the  Irish  people  was  assuming  vaster  proportions  every  day ;  the 
people  was  soon  to  show  itself  in  all  its  strength  and  reality,  to 
be  crushed  out  apparently  by  Cromwell,  but  really  to  be  pre- 
served bv  Providence  for  a  future  acre,  now  at  hand  to-day. 

Spenser  and  Raleigh,  being  gifted  with  keener  foresight  than 
most  of  their  countrymen,  were  for  the  entire  destruction  of  the 
people,  thinking,  as  did  many  French  revolutionists  of  our  own 
days,  that  "  only  the  dead  never  come  back." 

The  author  of  the  "  Faerie  Queene,"  who  had  taken  an  active 
part  in  the  horrible  butcheries  of  the  Geraldine  war,  when  all 
the  Irish  of  Munster  were  indiscriminately  slaughtered,  insists 
that  a  similar  policy  should  be  adopted  for  the  whole  island-  In 
his  work  "  On  the  State  of  Ireland,"  he  asks  for  "large  masses 
of  troops  to  tread  down  all  that  standeth  before  them  on  foot, 
and  lay  on  the  ground  all  the  stiff-necked  people  of  that  land." 
He  urges  that  the  war  be  carried  on  not  only  in  the  summer  but 
in  the  winter ;  "  for  then,  the  trees  are  bare  and  naked,  which 
use  both  to  hold  and  house  the  kerne ;  the  ground  is  cold  and 
wet,  which  useth  to  be  his  bedding  ;  the  air  is  sharp  and  bitter, 
to  blow  through  his  naked  sides  and  legs  ;  the  kine  are  barren 
and  without  milk,  which  useth  to  be  his  food,  besides  being  all 
with  calf  (for  the  most  part),  they  will  through  much  chasing  and 
driving  cast  all  their  calf,  and  lose  all  their  milk,  which  should 
relieve  him  in  the  next  summer." 

Spenser  here  employs  his  splendid  imagination  to  present 
gloatingly  such  details  as  the  most  effective  means  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  hated  race.  All  he  demands  is,  that  "  the  end 
should  be  very  short,"  and  he  gives  us  an  example  of  the  effec- 
tiveness and  beauty  of  his  system  "in  the  late  wars  in  Mini- 
ster." For,  "  notwithstanding  that  the  same  "  (Munster)  "  was  a 
most  rich  and  plentiful  country,  full  of  come  and  cattle,  .  .  . 
yet  ere  one  yeare  and  a  half  they  "  (the  Irish)  "  were  brought  to 
such  wretchednesse  as  that  any  stony  heart  would  have  rued  the. 
same.  Out  of  every  corner  of  woods  and  glynnes,  they  came 
creeping  forthe  upon  their  hands,  for  their  legges  could  not  beare 
them ;  they  looked  like  anatomies  of  death ;  they  spoke  like 
ghosts  crying  out  of  their  graves  ....  that  in  short  space  there 
were  none  almost  left,  and  a  most  populous  and  plentiful  country 
suddenlv  left  void  of  man  and  beast." 

Such  is  a  picture,  horribly  graphic,  of  the  state  to  which 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


215 


Munster  had  been  reduced  by  the  policy  of  England  as  carried 
out  by  a  Gilbert,  a  Peter  Carew,  and  a  Cosby  ;  and  to  this  pass 
the  '*  gentle  n  Spenser  would  have  wished  to  see  the  whole  coun- 
try come. 

Even  Mr.  Froude  is  compelled  to  denounce  in  scathing  terms 
the  monsters  employed  by  the  queen,  and  his  facts  are  all  de- 
rived, he  tells  us,  from  existing  "  state  papers." 

Writing  of  the  end  of  the  Geraldine  war,  he  says  :  "  The 
English  nation  was  at  that  time  shuddering  over  the  atrocities 
of  the  Duke  of  Alva.  The  children  in  the  nurseries  were  being 
inflamed  to  patriotic  rage  and  madness  by  the  tales  of  Spanish 
tyranny.  Yet,  Alva's  bloody  sword  never  touched  the  young, 
defenceless,  or  those  whose  sex  even  dogs  can  recognize  and  re- 
spect. 

"  Sir  Peter  Carew  has  been  seen  murdering  women  and  chil- 
dren, and  babies  that  haa  scarcely  left  the  breast ;  but  Sir  Peter 
Carew  was  not  called  on  to  answer  for  his  conduct,  and  remained 
in  favor  with  the  deputy.  Gilbert,  who  was  left  in  command  at 
Kilnallock,  was  illustrating  yet  more  signally  the  same  ten- 
dency." Nor  "  was  Gilbert  a  bad  man.  As  time  went  on,  he 
passed  for  a  brave  and  chivalrous  gentleman,  not  the  least  dis- 
tinguished in  that  high  band  of  adventurers  who  carried  the 
English  flag  into  the  western  hemisphere  ....  above  all,  a  man 
of  4  special  piety.'  He  regarded  himself  as  dealing  rather  with 
savage  beasts  than  with  human  beings  (in  Ireland),  and,  when 
he  tracked  them  to  their  dens,  he  strangled  the  cabs,  and  rooted 
out  the  entire  brood. 

"  The  Gilbert  method  of  treatment  has  this  disadvantage, 
that  it  must  be  carried  out  to  the  last  extremity,  or  it  ought  not 
to  be  tried  at  all.  The  dead  do  not  come  back ;  and  if  the 
mothers  and  babies  are  slaughtered  with  the  men,  the  race  gives 
no  further  trouble ;  but  the  work  must  be  done  thoroughly ; 
partial  and  fitful  cruelty  lays  up  only  a  long  debt  of  deserved  and 
ever-deepening  hate. 

"  In  justice  to  the  English  soldiers,  however,  it  must  be  said 
that  it  was  no  fault  of  theirs  if  any  Irish  child  of  that  generation 
was  allowed  to  live  to  manhood." — {Hist,  of  Engl.,  vol.  x.,  p.  507.) 

These  Munster  horrors  occurred  directly  after  the  defeat  of 
the  Irish  at  Kin  sale.  Cromwell,  therefore,  in  the  atrocities 
which  will  come  under  our  notice,  only  followed  out  the  policy  of 
the  "  Virgin  Queen."  And  it  is  but  too  evident  that  the  Eng- 
lish of  1598  were  the  fathers  or  grandfathers  of  those  of  1650. 
Both  were  inaugurating  a  system  of  warfare  which  had  never 
been  adopted  before,  even  among  pagans,  unless  by  the  Tartar 
troops  under  Genghis  Khan ;  a  system  which  in  future  ages 
should  shape  the  policy,  which  was  followed,  for  a  short  time,  by 
the  French  Convention  in  la  Vendee. 


216 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


Raleigh,  as  well  as  Spenser,  seems  to  have  been  a  vigorous 
advocate  of  this  system.  It  is  true  that  his  sole  appearance  on 
the  scene  was  on  the  occasion  of  the  surrender  of  Smerwick  by 
the  Spanish  garrison  ;  but  the  Saxon  spirit  of  the  man  was  dis- 
played in  his  execution  of  Lord  Grey's  orders,  who,  after,  accord- 
ing to  all  the  Irish  accounts,  promising  their  lives  to  the  Span- 
iards, had  them  executed  ;  and  Ealeigh  appears  to  have  directed 
that  execution,  whereby  eight  hundred  prisoners  of  war  were  cruel- 
ly butchered  and  flung  over  the  rocks  in  the  sea.  From  that  time 
out  the  phrase  "  Grey's  faith  "  (Graia  fides)  became  a  proverb 
with  the  Irish. 

After  having  succeeded  in  crushing  Desmond  and  "  planting" 
Hunster,  the  attention  of  Elizabeth  was  directed  to  the  O'Xeills 
and  O'Donnells  of  Ulster.  That  thrilling  history  is  well  known. 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  O'Donnell  from  his  youth  was  designedly 
exasperated  by  ill-treatment  and  imprisonment ;  and  that  as  soon 
as  O'Neill,  who  had  been  treated  with  the  greatest  apparent 
kindness  by  the  queen,  that  he  might  become  a  queen's  man, 
showed  that  he  was  still  an  Irishman  and  a  lover  of  his  country, 
he  was  marked  out  as  a  victim,  and  all  the  troops  and  treasures 
of  England  were  poured  out  lavishly  to  crush  him  and  destroy 
the  royal  races  of  the  north. 

In  that  gigantic  struggle  one  feature  is  remarkable — that, 
whenever  the  English  Government  felt  obliged  to  come  to  terms 

•  ~r  i  n 

with  the  last  asserters  of  Irish  independence,  the  first  condition 
invariably  laid  down  by  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell  was  the  free 
exercise  of  the  Catholic  religion.  For  we  must  not  lose  sight  of 
the  well-ascertained  fact  that  the  English  queen,  who  at  the  very 
commencement  of  her  reign  had  haa  her  spiritual  supremacy  ac- 
knowledged by  the  Irish  Parliament  under  pain  of  forfeiture, 
praemunire,  and  high-treason,  insisted  all  along  on  the  binding 
obligation  of  this  title  ;  and  though  at  first  she  had  secretly  prom- 
ised that  this  law  should  not  be  enforced  against  the  laitv,  she 
showed  by  all  her  measures  that  its  observance  was  of  paramount 
importance  in  her  eyes. 

Had  the  Irish  followed  the  English  as  a  nation,  and  accepted 
Protestantism,  Elizabeth  would  scarcely  have  made  war  upon 
them,  nor  introduced  her  "plantations."  All  along  the  Irish 
were  "  traitors  "  and  "  rebels  "  simply  because  they  chose  to  re- 
main Catholics,  and  McGeoghegan  has  well  remarked  that,  "  not- 
withstanding the  severe  laws  enacted  by  Henry  Yin.,  Edward 
VI.,  and  Elizabeth,  down  to  James  I.,  it  is  a  well-established 
truth  that,  during  that  period,  the  number  of  Irishmen  who  em- 
braced the  'reformed  religion'  did  not  amount  to  sixty  in  a 
country  which  at  the  time  contained  two  millions  of  souls." 
And  SlcGeoghegan  might  have  added  that,  of  these  sixty,  not 
one  belonged  to  the  people  ;  they  were  all  native  chieftains  who 


THE  SUFFEPwING  CHURCH. 


217 


sold  their  religion  in  order  to  hold  their  estates  or  receive  favors 
from  the  queen. 

Sir  James  Ware  is  bold  enough  to  say  that,  in  all  her  dealings 
with  the  Irish  nobility,  Elizabetn  never  mentioned  religion,  and 
their  right  of  practising  it  as  they  wished  never  came  into  the 
question.  She  certainly  never  subjected  them  to  any  oath,  as 
was  the  case  in  England.  Technically  speaking,  this  statement 
seems  correct.  Yet  it  is  undeniable  that  Elizabeth  allowed  no 
Catholic  bishops  or  priests  to  remain  in  the  island ;  permitted  the 
Irish  to  have  none  but  Protestant  school-teachers  for  their  chil- 
dren ;  bestowed  all  their  churches  on  heretical  ministers ;  closed, 
one  by  one,  all  the  buildings  which  Catholics  used  for  their  wor- 
ship, as  soon  as  their  existence  became  known  to  the  police  ;  in 
fact  obliged  them  to  practise  Protestantism  or  no  religion  at  all. 

In  the  eyes  of  Elizabeth  a  Catholic  was  a  "rebel."  Whoever 
was  executed  for  religion  during  her  reign  was  executed  for  u  re- 
bellion." The  Roman  emperors  who  persecuted  the  Church  dur- 
the  first  three  centuries,  might  have  advanced  the  same  pretences 
And  indeed  the  early  Christians  were  said  to  be  tortured  and 
executed  for  their  "  violation  of  the  laws  of  the  empire." 

This  point  will  come  more  clearly  before  us  in  considering 
the  second  phase  of  the  policy  of  Elizabeth,  her  direct  interfer- 
ence with  the  Church. 

II.  If  the  policy  of  England's  queen  had  been  one  of  treach- 
ery and  deceit  toward  the  nobility,  toward  the  Church  it  was 
avowedly  one  of  blood  and  destruction. 

Well-intentioned  and  otherwise  well-informed  writers,  among 
them  Mr.  Prendergast,  seem  to  consider  that  the  main  object 
of  the  atrocious  proceedings  we  now  proceed  to  glance  at  was 
"  greed,"  and  that  the  English  Government  merely  connived  at 
the  covetous  desires  of  adventurers  and  undertakers,  who  wished 
to  destroy  the  Irish  and  occupy  their  lands ;  for,  as  Spenser  says  : 
"  Sure  it  was  a  most  beautiful  and  sweete  countrv  as  any  under 
heaven,  being  stored  throughout  with  many  goodly  rivers,  re- 
plenished with  all  sorts  of  fish  most  abundantly ;  sprinkled  with 
many  very  sweete  islands,  and  goodly  lakes  like  little  inland  seas  ; 
adorned  with  goodly  woods ;  also  full  of  very  good  ports  and 
havens  opening  upon  England  as  inviting  us  to  come  into  them." 

Such,  according  to  those  writers,  was  the  policy  of  England 
from  the  first  landing  of  Strongbow  on  the  snores  of  Erin,  and 
even  during  the  preceding  four  centuries,  when  both  races  were 
Catholic,  and  the  conversion  of  the  natives  to  Protestantism  could 
not  enter  the  thoughts  of  the  invaders. 

This,  to  a  certain  extent,  is  true.  Still,  it  seems  very  doubtful 
to  us  that  Elizabeth  should  have  undertaken  so  many  wars  in 
Ireland,  which  lasted  through  her  whole  reign,  and  on  which  she 
employed  all  the  strength  and  resources  of  England,  merely  to 


218 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


please  a  certain  number  of  nobles  who  wished  to  find  foreign  es- 
tates whereon  to  settle  their  numerous  offspring. 

The  chief  importance,  in  her  eyes,  of  the  conquest  was  clearly 
to  establish  her  spiritual  superiority  in  that  part  of  her  domin- 
ions. She  would  have  left  the  native  nobles  at  peace,  and  even 
conferred  on  them  her  choicest  favors,  had  they  only  consented, 
as  English  subjects,  to  break  with  Rome.  Rome  had  excommu- 
nicated her ;  riiis  V.  had  released  her  subjects  from  their  alle- 
giance because  of  her  heresy,  and  Ireland  did  not  reject  tjie  bull 
of  the  Pope.  This  in  her  eyes  constituted  the  great  and  unpar- 
donable offence  of  the  Irish.  And  that,  for  her,  the  whole  ques- 
tion bore  a  religious  character,  will  appear  more  clearly  from  her 
conduct  toward  the  Catholic  Church  throughout  her  reign.  Into 
this  part  of  our  subject  the  examination  of  the  step  taken  by 
Pius  V.  naturally  enters,  and,  in  examining  it,  we  shall  see 
whether,  and  how  far.  the  Irish  can  be  called  rebels  and  "  trai- 
tors/' 

In  his  history  of  the  Reformation,  Dr.  Heylin  says  of  Eliza- 
beth :  "  She  knew  full  well  that  her  legitimation  and  the  Pope's 
supremacy  could  not  stand  together,  and  she  could  not  possibly 
maintain  the  one  without  discarding  the  other."  This  is  perfectly 
true,  and  furnishes  us  with  the  key  to  all  her  church  measures. 

She  pretended  to  be  a  Catholic  during  Mary's  reign ;  but  it 
was  merely  pretence.  To  persevere  in  Catholicity  required  of 
her  the  sacrifice  of  her  political  aspirations ;  for  the  Church  could 
not  admit  of  her  legitimacy,  and  consequently  her  title  to  the 
crown  of  England,  Hence,  upon  the  death  of  Mary  Tudor,  the 
Queen  of  Scots  immediately  assumed  the  title  of  Queen  of 
England  ;  and  although  the  Pope,  then  Pius  IV.,  did  not  immedi- 
ately declare  himself  in  favor  of  Mary  Stuart,  but  reserved  his 
decision  for  a  future  period,  nevertheless,  the  view  of  the  case 
adopted  by  the  Pontiff  could  not  be  mistaken.  Elizabeth's 
legitimacy,  or,  as  Heylin  has  it,  "legitimation  and  the  Pope's 
supremacy  could  not  stand  together. "  No  course  was  left  open 
to  her,  then,  than  to  reject  the  pontifical  authority,  and  establish 
her  own  in  her  dominions,  as  she  did  not  possess  faith  enough  to 
set  her  soul  above  a  crown ;  and  the  success  of  her  father, 
Henry  VIII.,  and  of  her  half-brother,  Edward  VI.,  encouraged 
her  in  this  step.  This  fully  explains  her  policy.  It  became  a 
principle  with  her  that,  to  accept  the  Pope's  supremacy  in  spirit- 
uals, was  to  deny  her  legitimacy,  and  consequently  to  be  guilty 
of  treason  against  her.  This  made  the  position  of  Catholics  in  Eng- 
land and  Ireland  a  most  trying  one.  But  their  moral  duty  was 
clear  enough,  and  every  other  obligation  had  to  give  way  before 
that.  In  the  persecution  which  followed  they  were  certainly 
martyrs  to  their  duty  and  their  religion. 

That  the  question  of  the  succession  in  England  was  an  ooen 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


219 


one,  must  be  admitted  by  every  candid  man.  Who  was  the 
legitimate  Queen  of  England  at  the  death  of  Mary  Tudor  ?  The 
Queen  of  Scots  assumed  the  title,  and,  as  the  legitimate  off- 
spring of  the  sister  of  Henry  VIIL,  she  had  the  right  to  it  as  the 
nearest  direct  descendant  in  the  event  of  Elizabeth's  pretensions 
not  being  admitted  by  the  nation.  The  nation  at  the  time  was  in 
fact,  though  not  in  right,  the  nobles,  who  enriched  themselves  at 
the  expense  of  the  Church,  and  were  therefore  deeply  interested 
in  the  exclusion  of  Catholic  principles.  A  Parliament  composed 
of  the  nobles  had  already  acknowledged  Elizabeth  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  Queen  of  Scots,  and  the  former  decision  was  reaffirmed 
as  against  a  "  female  pretender  "  supported  by  a  foreign  power, 
namely,  France. 

England,  that  is  to  say,  the  corrupt  nobility  of  the  kingdom,  by 
taking  upon  itself  that  decision,  refused  to  submit  the  question  to 
the  arbitration  of  the  Pope ;  and  thus,  for  the  first  time,  the  prin- 
ciples which  had  guided  Christendom  for  eight  hundred  years, 
were  discarded,  i  et,  under  Mary,  the  Catholic  Church  had  been 
declared  the  Church  of  the  state ;  at  her  death,  no  change  took 
place  ;  the  mass  of  the  people  was  still  Catholic.  It  took  Elizabeth 
her  whole  reign  to  make  the  English  a  thoroughly  Protestant 
people.  The  great  mass  of  the  nation  came  consequently  then, 
even  legally,  under  the  law  of  mediaeval  times,  which  surrendered 
the  decision  of  such  cases  into  the  hands  of  the  Roman  Pontiff. 

Again,  when  we  reflect  that  our  present  object  is  the  consid- 
eration of  who  was  the  legitimate  Queen  of  Ireland,  the  question 
becomes  clearer  and  simpler  still.  The  supremacy  of  Henry  VIIL 
had  never  been  acknowledged  in  the  island,  even  by  those  who 
had  subscribed  to  the  decrees  of  the  Parliament  of  1541  and  1569. 
The  Irish  chieftains  had  not  only  never  assented,  but  had  always 
preserved  their  independence  in  all,  save  the  suzerainty  of  the 
English  monarchs,  and  they  were  at  the  time,  without  exception, 
Catholics.  For  them,  therefore,  the  Pope  was  the  expounder  of  the 
law  of  succession  to  the  throne,  as,  up  to  that  time,  he  had  been 
generally  recognized  in  Europe.  Elizabeth,  consequently,  as  an 
acknowledged  illegitimate  child,  could  not  become  a  legitimate 
queen  without  a  positive  declaration  and  election  by  the  true  re- 
presentatives of  the  people,  approved  by  the  Pope.  Her  assump- 
tion, then,  of  the  supreme  government  was  a  mere  usurpation. 
The  theory  of  governments  de  facto  being  obeyed  as  quasi-legiti- 
mate had  not  yet  been  mooted  among  lawyers  and  theologians. 
"With  respect  to  the  whole  question,  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to 
the  conclusion  at  which  any  able  constitutional  jurist  of  our  days 
would  arrive. 

Could  usurped  rights  such  as  these  invest  Elizabeth  with 
authority  to  declare  herself  paramount  not  only  in  political  but 
also  in  religious  matters  ?    And,  because  she  was  called  queen, 


220 


TIIE  SUFFERING  CHUPwCH. 


can  it  be  considered  treason  for  an  Irishman  to  believe  in  the 
spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Pope  ?  Yet,  unless  we  look  upon  as 
martyrs  those  who  died  on  the  rack  and  the  gibbet  in  Ireland 
during  her  reign,  because  they  refused  to  admit  in  a  woman  the 
title  of  Yicar  of  Christ,  to  such  decision  must  we  come. 

The  policy  of  the  English  queen  toward  Catholic  bishops, 
priests,  and  monks,  presents  the  question  in  a  still  stronger  light. 
Its  chief  feature  will  now  come  before  us,  and  will  show  how  all 
of  these  suffered  for  Christ.  We  say  all,  because  not  only  those 
are  included  in  the  category  who  held  aloof  from  politics  and 
confined  themselves  to  the  exercise  of  their  spiritual  functions, 
but  those  also  who,  at  the  bidding  of  the  Pope,  or  following  the 
natural  promptings  of  their  own  inclinations,  favored  the  so- 
called  rebellion  of  the  Geraldine  and  of  the  Ulster  chieftains. 
The  lives  and  death  of  both  are  now  well  known,  and  to  both 
we  award  the  title  of  heroes  and  Christian  martyrs. 

As  it  would  be  too  long  to  present  here  a  complete  picture  of 
those  events,  and  trace  the  biography  of  many  of  those  who  suf- 
fered persecution  at  that  time,  we  content  ourselves  with  two 
faithful  representatives  of  the  classes  above  mentioned — Richard 
Creagh,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  and  Dr.  Hurley,  Archbishop  of 
Cashel.  The  case  of  the  great  Oliver  Plunkett,  who  suffered 
under  Charles  II.,  and  who  was  the  victim  of  the  entire  English 
nation,  is  beyond  our  present  discussion. 

The  biography  of  the  first  of  these  has  been  written  by  several 
authors,  who,  agreeing  as  to  the  main  facts  of  his  history,  differ 
only  in  their  chronology.  Dr.  Poothe's  account  is  the  longest  of 
all,  and  is  intricate,  and  subject  to  some  confusion  with  regard  to 
dates  ;  but  a  sketch  of  that  life,  which  appeared  in  the  Bambhr 
of  April,  1853,  is  the  most  consistent  and  easily  reconciled  with 
the  well-known  facts  of  the  general  history  of  the  period,  and 
therefore  we  follow  it : 

Pichard  Creagh,  proposed  for  the  See  of  Armagh  by  the 
nuncio,  David  Wolfe,  arrived  at  Limerick  in  the  August  of  1560, 
at  the  very  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  Pius  IV.,  who 
was  then  Pontiff,  had  not  come  to  any  conclusion  respecting  the 
sovereignty  of  England,  and  did  not  openly  declare  himself  in 
favor  of  the  right  of  Mary  Stuart  to  the  crown.  The  Pope,  not 
having  given  any  positive  injunctions  to  Archbishop  Creagh,  with 
regard  to  his  political  conduct,  the  latter  was  left  free  to  follow 
the  dictates  of  his  conscience.  He  came  only  with  a  letter,  to 
Shane  O'Neill,  who,  at  the  time,  was  almost  independent  in  Ulster. 

Not  only  did  the  archbishop  not  take  any  part  in  the  political 
measures  of  the  Ulster  chieftain,  who  was  often  at  war  with 
Elizabeth,  but  he  soon  came  to  a  disagreement  with  him  on 
purely  conscientious  grounds,  and  finally  excommunicated  him. 
In  the  midst  of  the  many  difficulties  which  surrounded  him,  he 


TIIE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


221 


resolved  to  inculcate  peace  and  loyalty  to  Elizabeth  throughout 
Ulster,  asking  of  Shane  only  one  favor,  that  of  founding  colleges 
and  schools,  and  thinking  that,  by  remaining  loyal  to  the  queen, 
he  might  obtain  her  assistance  in  founding  a  university.  The 

food  prelate  little  knew  the  character  of  the  woman  with  whom 
e  had  to  deal,  imagining  probably  that  the  decree  of  her  spirit- 
ual supremacy  would  remain  a  dead  letter  for  the  priesthood,  as 
had  been  falsely  promised  to  the  laity. 

But  he  was  not  left  long  to  indulge  in  these  delusions ;  for,  in 
the  act  of  celebrating  mass  in  a  monastery  of  his  diocese,  he  was 
betrayed  by  some  informer,  and  was  arrested  by  a  troop  of  sol- 
diers, who  conducted  him  before  the  government  authorities,  by 
whom  he  was  sent  to  London  and  confined  in  the  Tower  on  Jan- 
uary 18, 1565.  He  was  there  several  times  interrogated  by  Cecil 
and  the  Recorder  of  London,,  who  could  easily  ascertain  that  the 
prelate  was  altogether  guiltless  of  political  intrigue. 

He  escaped  miraculously,  passed  through  Louvain,  went  to 
Spain,  at  the  time  at  peace  with  England,  and,  wishing  to  return 
to  Ireland,  wrote,  through  the  Spanish  ambassador,  to  Leicester, 
then  all-powerful  with  the  queen,  to  protest  beforehand  that,  if 
the  Pope  should  order  him  to  return  to  his  diocese,  he  intended 
only  to  render  to  Caesar  what  is  Caesar's  and  to  God  what  is 
God's.  Even  then,  after  his  prison  experience  of  several  months, 
he  thought  that,  if  he  could  persuade  Elizabeth  that  he  was  truly 
loyal  to  her,  she  would  forgive  him  his  Catholicity. 

Receiving  no  answer,  he  set  sail  for  his  country,  where  he 
landed  in  August,  1566,  and  shortly  after  wrote  to  Sir  Henry 
Sidney,  then  lord-deputy,  in  the  very  terms  he  had  used  with' 
Leicester,  and  proposing  in  addition  to  use  his  efforts  in  inducing 
Shane  O'Neill  to  conclude  peace. 

What  Sidney  and  his  masters  in  London,  Cecil  and  Leicester, 
must  have  thought  of  the  simplicity  of  this  good  man,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say.  They  condescended  to  return  no  answer  to  his 
more  than  straightforward  communication,  save  the  short  verbal 
reply  concerning  O'Neill :  "  We  have  given  forth  speach  of  his 
extermination  by  war." 

The  good  prelate,  after  having  so  clearly  defined  his  position, 
thought  he  might  safely  follow  the  dictates  of  his  conscience,  and 
govern  his  flock  in  peace ;  but  he  was  soon  taken  prisoner,  in 
April,  1567,  by  O'Shaughnessy,  who  received  a  special  letter  of 
thanks  from  Elizabeth  for  his  services  on  this  occasion. 

By  order  of  the  queen,  he  was  tried  in  Dublin ;  but,  so  clear  wag 
the  case  before  them,  that  even  a  Protestant  jury  could  not  convict 
him.  The  honest  Dublin  jurors  were  therefore  cast  into  prison 
and  heavily  fined,  while  the  prelate  was  once  again  transferred  to 
London,  whence  he  a  second  time  escaped  by  the  connivance  of 
his  jailor. 


222 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


Retaken  in  1567,  he  was  handed  over  to  the  queen's  officers, 
under  a  pledge  that  his  life  would  be  spared.  And,  in  conse- 
quence of  this  pledge  alone,  was  he  never  brought  to  trial,  but 
kept  a  close  prisoner  in  the  Tower  for  eighteen  years,  until  in 
1585  he  was,  according  to  all  reliable  accounts,  deliberately  poi- 
soned. 

This  simple  narrative  certainly  proves  that  in  Elizabeth's  eyes 
the  mere  sustaining  the  Pope's  spiritual  supremacy  was  trea- 
son, and  every  Catholic  consequently,  because  Catholic,  a  traitor 
deserving  death. 

True,  the  Irish  prelates,  monks,  and  people,  might  have  imi- 
tated the  majority  of  the  English  nobles  and  people  in  accept- 
ing the  new  dogma.  In  that  case,  they  would  have  become  truly 
loyal  and  dutiful  subjects,  and  been  admitted  to  all  the  rights  oi 
citizenship ;  the  nobles  would  have  retained  possession  of  their 
estates,  the  gentry  obtained  seats  in  the  Irish  Parliament ;  while 
the  common  people,  renouncing  clanship,  absurd  old  traditions, 
the  memory  of  their  ancestors,  together  with  their  obedience  to 
the  See  of  Pome,  would  not  have  been  excluded  from  the  bene- 
fits of  education  ;  would  have  been  allowed  to  engage  in  trades 
and  manufactures ;  would  have  been  permitted  to  keep  their 
land,  or  hold  it  by  long  leases ;  would  have  enjoyed  the  privi- 
lege of  dwelling  in  walled  towns  and  cities,  if  they  felt  no  inclina- 
tion for  agriculture.  They  would  have  become  no  doubt  "  a  high- 
ly-prosperous "  nation,  as  the  English  and  Scotch  of  our  days  have 
become,  partakers  of  all  the  advantages  of  the  glorious  British 
Constitution,  cultivating  the  fields  ol  their  ancestors,  and  con- 
verting their  beautiful  island  into  a  paradise  more  enchanting 
than  the  rich  meadows  and  wheat-fields  of  England  itself. 

On  the  other  hand,  they  would  have  obtained  all  those  tem- 
poral advantages  at  the  expense  of  their  faith,  which  no  one  had 
a  right  to  take  from  them ;  in  their  opinion,  and  in  that  of  mill- 
ions of  their  fellow-Catholics,  they  would  have  forfeited  their 
right  to  heaven,  and  the  Irish  have  always  been  unreasonable 
enough  to  prefer  heaven  to  earth.  They  have  preferred,  as  the 
holy  men  of  old  of  whom  St.  Paul  speaks,  "  to  be  stoned,  cut 
asunder,  tempted,  put  to  death  by  the  sword,  to  wander  about  in 
sheep-skins,  in  goat-skins  ;  being  in  want,  distressed,  afflicted,  of 
whom  the  world  was  not  worthy  ;  wandering  in  deserts,  in 
mountains,  in  dens,  and  in  the  caves  of  the  earth,  being  approved 
by  the  testimony  of  faith  : "  that  is  to  say,  having  the  testimony 
of  their  conscience  and  the  approval  of  God,  and  considering  this 
better  than  worldly  prosperity  and  earthly  happiness. 

Turning  now  to  those  prelates,  monks,  and  priests,  who  dur- 
ing Elizabeth's  reign  took  part  in  Irish  politics  against  the 
queen,  can  we  on  that  account  deny  them  the  title  of  martvrs  to 
their  faith  ? 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


223 


Dr.  Hurley,  Archbishop  of  Cashel,  whose  memoirs  were  pub- 
ashed  by  Miles  O'Reilly,  may  be  taken  as  a  type  of  this  class. 
Suppose,  as  well  grounded,  although  never  proved,  the  suspicion 
of  the  English  Government  with  regard  to  his  political  mission. 
Prelates  and  priests,  generally  speaking,  were  put  to  death  under 
Elizabeth,  or  confined  to  dungeons  on  mere  suspicion,  and,  as  we 
have  seen  in  the  case  of  the  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  even  clear 
proofs  of  their  innocence  would  not  save  them. 

On  his  father's  side,  Dr.  Hurley  was  naturally  in  the  interest 
of  James  Geraldine,  Earl  of  Desmond ;  and,  on  his  mother's,  he 
belonged  to  the  royal  family  of  O'Briens  of  Munster.  Consecrated 
Archbishop  of  Cashel  at  Rome  in  1580,  under  Gregory  XIII., 
during  the  Geraldine  rebellion,  he  was  compelled  to  use  the 
utmost  precaution  in  entering  Ireland.  The  police  of  Elizabeth 
was  particularly  active  at  that  time  in  hunting  up  priests  and 
monks  throughout  the  whole  island,  but  particularly  in  the  south. 

The  archbishop  escaped  all  these  dangers,  and  he  avoided 
the  certain  denunciation  of  Walter  Baal,  the  Mayor  of  Dublin 
probably,  who  was  then  actually  persecuting  his  mother,  Dame 
Eleanor  Birmingham ;  he  fled  to  the  castle  of  Thomas  Fleming, 
who  concealed  him  in  a  secret  chamber  in  his  house  and  treated 
him  as  a  friend.  But  when  everybody  thought  the  danger 
past,  and  that  it  was  no  longer  imprudent  for  him  to  mix  in 
the  society  of  the  castle,  he  was  suspected  by  an  Anglo-Irishman 
of  the  name  of  Dillon,  denounced  by  him,  and  finally  surrendered 
by  Thomas  Fleming,  and  conveyed  to  Dublin,  where  proceedings 
were  set  on  foot  against  him  by  the  Irish  Council  and  the  queen's 
ministers  in  England. 

His  imprisonment  was  coincident  with  the  suppression  of  the 
rising  in  Munster,  and  the  Earl  of  Desmond  was  beginning  that 
frightful  outlaw-life  which  only  ended  with  his  miserable  death. 

The  object  of  the  archbishop's  accusers  was  to  connect  him 
with  the  designs  of  Rome  and  the  Munster  insurrection ;  and  the 
state  papers  preserved  in  London  have  disclosed  to  us  the  cor- 
respondence between  Adam  Loftus,  the  Protestant  Archbishop 
of  Dublin,  on  the  one  side,  and  Walsingliam  and  Cecil  on  the 
other. 

The  only  proofs  of  the  Archbishop's  having  joined  the  south- 
ern confederacy  were :  1.  Suspicions,  as  he  was  consecrated  in 
Rome  about  the  time  of  the  sailing  of  the  expedition  under  James 
Fitzmaurice ;  2.  The  information  of  a  certain  Christopher  Barn- 
well, then  in  jail,  who  was  promised  his  life  if  he  could  furnish 
proofs  enough  to  convict  the  prelate.  The  value  of  the  testimony 
of  an  "  informer  "  under  such  circumstances  is  proverbial ;  yet 
all  Barnwell  could  allege  was,  that  "he  was  present  at  a  conver- 
sation in  Rome  between  Dr.  Hurley  and  Cardinal  Comonsis,  the 
Pope's  secretary,  and  the  result  of  the  whole  conversation  was, 


224 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


"that  the  doctor  did  not  know  nor  believe  that  the  Earl  of 
Kildare  had  joined  the  rebellion  of  Fitzmaurice  and  Desmond, 
and  he  was  rebuked  by  the  cardinal  for  not  believing  it." 

This  was  considered  overwhelming  proof  against  him,  in  spite 
of  his  positive  denial.  Torture  was  applied,  but  the  most  awful 
sufferings  could  not  wring  from  him  the  acknowledgmeut  of 
having  taken  part  in  the  conspiracy.  Yet  Loftus  and  Wallop 
were  of  opinion  that  he  was  a  "  rebel "  and  ought  to  be  put  to 
death.  The  only  difficulty  which  presented  itself  to  the  "  Lords 
Justices  "  of  Ireland  was,  that  there  was  no  statute  in  Ireland 
against  "  traitors  "  who  had  plotted  beyond  the  seas,  and  they 
asked  that  the  archbishop  should  either  be  sent  to  be  tried  in 
England,  or  tried  in  Ireland  by  martial  law,  which  would  screen 
them  from  responsibility. 

This  last  favor  was  granted  them ;  and  the  holy  archbishop 
was  taken  from  prison  at  early  dawn,  on  a  Friday,  either  in  May 
or  June,  1584.  He  was  barbarously  hanged  in  a  withey  (withe), 
calling  on  God,  and  forgiving  his  torturers  with  all  his  heart. 

Our  purpose  is  not  to  inveigh  against  this  judicial  murder, 
and,  by  further  details,  increase  the  horror  which  every  honest 
man  must  feel  at  the  narrative  of  such  atrocious  proceedings. 
We  will  suppose,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  cooperation  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Cashel  with  Fitzmaurice  and  Desmond,  and  even 
with  the  Pope  and  King  of  Spain,  had  been  clearly  proved — as 
it  is  certain  that,  if  not  in  this  case,  at  least  in  some  others, 
during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  the  bishops  or  priests  accused  had 
really  taken  part  in  the  attempt  of  the  Irish  to  free  themselves 
from  such  tyranny — and  insist  that,  even  then,  the  murdered 
Catholic  ecclesiastics  really  died  for  their  religion,  and  could  be 
called  "  rebels  "  in  no  sense  whatever. 

First,  the  question  might  arise  as  to  how  far  the  Irish  were 
subject  to  the  English  crown.  We  have  seen  how,  a  few  years 
before,  Gillapatrick,  of  Ossory,  asserted  his  right  of  making  war 
on  England,  when  he  felt  sufficient  provocation.  Under  Elizabeth 
the  case  was  still  clearer,  at  least  for  Catholics,  after  the  excom- 
munication of  the  queen  by  Pius  V.  As  we  have  seen,  the  chief 
title  of  England  to  Ireland  rested  on  two  pretended  papal  bulls  : 
another  Pope  could  and  did  recall  the  grant,  which  had  been 
founded  on  misrepresentation.  Up  to  that  time,  there  had  been 
no  real  subjection  by  conquest,  outside  of  the  Pale,  which  formed 
but  an  insignificant  part  of  the  island. 

Under  such  circumstances,  it  must  at  least  be.  admitted  that 
a  radically  and  clearly  unjust  law,  imposed  by  a  foreign  though 
perhaps  suzerain  power,  could  be  justly  resisted  by  force  of  arms. 
And  such  was  the  case  in  Ireland.  The  Queen  of  England — 
the  Irish  Parliament  of  1539  had  no  other  authoritv  than  that  of 
the  queen,  and  represented  no  part  of  the  people — had  made  it 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


225 


rebellion  for  the  Irish  to  remain  faithful  to  their  religion.  What 
could  prevent  the  Irish  from  resisting  such  pretension,  even  at 
the  cost  of  effusion  of  blood  %  The  early  Christians,  under  the 
Roman  Empire,  it  is  true,  never  rose  in  arms  against  the  bloody 
edicts  of  the  Caesars  or  the  Antonines ;  but  the  cases  are  not 
parallel. 

Suppose  that  Greece  or  Asia  Minor  had  never  succumbed  to 
the  Roman  power,  and  had  become  entirely  Christian  :  no  one 
would  refuse  to  admit  their  right  to  offer  armed  resistance  to  the 
extension  of  the  edicts  of  persecution  into  their  territory  On 
the  contrary,  it  would  have  been  their  duty  to  do  so  :  and  every 
one  of  their  inhabitants,  who  was  taken  and  executed  as  a  rebel, 
would  have  been  crowned  with  the  martyr's  crown. 

At  this  point,  indeed,  comes  in  the  consideration  of  the 
special  motive  which  animated  each  belligerent,  even  when 
fighting  on  the  right  side.  We  are  far  from  saying  that  all  the 
Irishmen,  particularly  the  leaders  and  chieftains  who  at  that 
time  ranged  themselves  under  the  banners  of  the  Desmonds  or 
the  O'Neills,  fought  purely  for  Christ  and  religion.  Many  of 
them,  no  doubt,  engaged  in  the  contest  from  mere  worldly  mo- 
tives, perhaps  even  for  purposes  unworthy  of  Christians ;  and 
in  this  case,  those  who  fell  in  the  struggle  were  in  no  sense  sol- 
diers of  Christ. 

But  how  many  such  are  to  be  found  among  the  bishops, 
priests,  or  monks,  who  perished  under  Elizabeth  \  May  it  not  be 
said  of  them  that,  to  a  man,  they  fell  for  the  sake  of  religion  ? 
We  may  even  be  bold  enough  to  say  that  the  majority  of  the 
common  Irish  people  who  lost  their  lives  in  those  wars  may  be 
placed  in  the  same  category  as  their  spiritual  rulers,  being  in 
reality  the  upholders  of  right  and  the  champions  of  Catholicity. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that,  at  the  period  of  which  we  speak, 
the  only  real  question  involved  in  the  contest  was  gradually  as- 
suming more  and  more  a  religious  character.  Henry  YIII.  and 
his  deputy,  St.  Leger,  had  struck  a  fatal  blow  at  clanship  and 
Irish  institutions  in  general,  by  bestowing  on  and  compelling  the 
chieftains  to  accept  English  titles,  and  by  investing  them  with 
new  deeds  of  their  lands  under  feudal  tenure.  Bv  Elizabeth, 
the  same  policy  was  steadily  and  successfully  pursued,  her  court 
being  always  graced  by  the  presence  of  young  Irish  lords,  edu- 
cated under  her  own  eyes,  and  loaded  with  all  her  royal  favors. 
All  she  asked  of  them  in  return  was  that  they  should  become 
Queers  men.  The  repugnance  once  felt  by  Irishmen  for  that 
gilded  slavery  was  each  day  becoming  less  marked.  But,  while 
every  thing  was  seemingly  working  so  well  for  the  attainment 
of  Elizabeth's  object  at  the  commencement  of  her  reign,  a  new 
feature  suddenly  shows  itself,  and  grows  rapidly  into  prominence 
■ — the  attachment  of  the  Irish  to  their  religion,  and  the  violent 


226 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


opposition  to  the  change  always  kept  foremost  in  view  by  the 
queen,  namely  the  substitution  of  her  spiritual  supremacy  for 
that  of  the  Pope. 

Thus  we  find  the  Irish  leaders,  when  proclaiming  their  griev- 
ances, either  on  the  eve  of  war,  or  the  signing  of  a  treaty  of 
peace,  always  giving  their  religious  convictions  the  first  place  on 
the  list.  The  religious  question,  then,  was  becoming  more  and 
more  the  question,  and,  notwithstanding  all  her  fine  assurances 
that  she  would  not  infringe  upon  the  religious  predilections  of 
the  laity,  Elizabeth's  great  purpose,  in  Ireland  and  in  England, 
was  to  destroy  Catholicity,  by  destroying  the  priesthood,  root 
and  branch. 

The  nobles  showed  how  fully  convinced  they  were  of  this, 
when  they  came  to  adopt  a  system  of  concealment,  even  of  du- 
plicity, to  which  Irishmen  ought  never  to  have  been  weak  enough 
to  submit.  Not  only  were  the  practices  of  their  religion  confined 
to  places  where  no  Englishman  or  Protestant  could  penetrate, 
but  gradually  they  allowed  their  houses — those  sanctuaries  of 
freedom — to  be  invaded  by  the  pursuivants  of  the  queen,  search- 
ing for  priests  or  monks  "  lately  arrived  from  Rome." 

Secret  apartments  were  constructed  by  skilful  architects  in 
noblemen's  manors ;  recesses  were  artfully  contrived  under  the 
roofs,  in  roomy  staircases,  or  even  in  basements  and  cellars. 
There  the  unfortunate  minister  of  religion  was  confined  for  weeks 
and  months,  creeping  forth  only  at  night,  to  breathe  the  fresh  air 
at  the  top  of  the  house  or  in  the  thick  shrubbery  of  the  adjoining 
park.  All  the  means  of  evading  the  law  used  by  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  first  centuries  were  reproduced  and  resorted  to  in 
Catholic  Ireland  by  chieftains  who  possessed  the  "  secret  promise  " 
of  the  queen  that  their  religion  should  not  be  interfered  with, 
and  that  her  supremacy  should  not  be  enforced  against  them. 

Not  thus  did  the  people  act :  their  keen  sense  of  injustice  took 
in  at  once  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case.  It  was  a  religious 
persecution,  nothing  else;  and  this  the  nobles  also  felt  in  their 
inmost  souls.  The  people  saw  the  ministers  of  religion  hunted 
down,  seized,  dragged  to  prison,  tried,  convicted,  barbarously 
executed  ;  they  recognized  it  in  its  reality  as  a  sheer  attempt  to 
destroy  Catholicity,  and  as  such  they  opposed  it  by  every  means 
in  their  power.  They  beheld  the  monks  and  friars  treated  as 
though  they  had  been  wild  beasts  ;  the  soldiers  falling  on  them 
wherever  they  met  them,  and  putting  them  to  death  with  every 
circumstance  of  cruelty  and  insult,  without  trial,  without  even 
the  identification  required  for  outlaws.  Mr.  Miles  O'Reilly's 
book,  "  Irish  Martyrs, "  is  full  of  cases  of  this  kind.  Hence  the 
people  frequently  offered  open  resistance  to  the  execution  of  the 
law ;  the  soldiers  had  to  disperse  the  mob  ;  but  the  real  mob 
was  the  verv  troop  commanded  by  English  officers. 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


227 


When  at  length  the  Irish  lords  no  longer  dared  offer  asylum 
to  the  outlawed  priesthood  in  their  manors  and  castles,  the  hut 
of  the  peasant  lay  open  to  them  still.  The  greater  the  quantity 
of  blood  poured  out  by  the  executors  of  the  barbarous  laws,  the 
greater  the  determination  of  the  people  to  protect  the  oppressed 
and  save  the  Lord's  anointed. 

Then  opened  a  scene  which  had  never  been  witnessed,  even 
under  the  most  cruel  persecutions  of  the  tyrants  of  old  Rome. 
The  whole  strength  of  the  English  kingdom  had  been  called  into 
play  to  crush  the  Irish  nobility  during  the  wars  of  Ulster  and 
Munster ;  the  whole  police  of  the  same  kingdom  was  now  put 
in  requisition  for  the  apprehension  and  destruction  of  church- 
men. Nay,  from  this  very  occupation,  the  great  police  system 
which  since  that  time  has  flourished  in  most  European  states, 
arose,  being  invented  or  at  least  perfected  for  the  purpose. 

Then,  for  the  first  time  in  modern  history,  numbers  of 
"  spies  "  and  "  informers  "  were  paid  for  the  service  of  English 
ministers  of  state.  Not  only  did  the  cities  of  England  and  Ire- 
land, harbor  cities  chiefly,  swarm  with  them,  but  they  covered 
the  whole  country ;  they  were  to  be  found  everywhere  :  around 
the  humble  dwelling  of  the  peasant  and  the  artisan,  in  the  streets 
and  on  the  highways,  inspecting  every  stranger  who  might  be 
a  friar  or  monk  in  disguise.  They  spread  through  the  whole 
European  Continent — along  the  coast  and  in  the  interior  of 
France  and  Belgium,  Italy  and  Spain,  in  the  churches,  convents, 
and  colleges,  even  in  the  courts  of  princes,  and,  as  we  have  seen 
in  the  case  of  Dr.  Hurley,  in  the  very  halls  of  the  Yatican.  The 
English  state  papers  have  disclosed  their  secret,  and  the  whole 
history  is  now  before  us. 

To  support  this  army  of  spies  and  informers,  the  soldiers  of 
that  other  army  of  England,  who  were  employed  either  in 
keeping  England  under  the  yoke  or  in  crushing  freedom  and 
religion  out  of  Ireland,  did  not  disdain  to  execute  the  orders 
which  converted  them  into  policemen  and  sbirri.  And  it  may 
be  said,  to  their  credit,  that  they  executed  those  orders  with  a 
ferocious  alacrity  unequalled  in  the  annals  of  military  life  in 
other  countries.  If,  during  the  most  fearful  commotions  in 
France,  the  army  has  been  employed  for  a  similar  purpose,  it 
must  be  acknowledged  that,  as  far  as  the  troops  wrere  concerned, 
they  performed  their  unwelcome  task  with  reluctance,  and  soft- 
ened down,  at  least,  their  execution,  by  considerate  manners  and 
respectful  demeanor.  But  these  soldiers  of  Elizabeth  showed 
themselves,  from  first  to  last,  full  of  ferocity.  They  generally 
went  far  beyond  the  letter  of  their  orders ;  they  took  an  inhuman 
delight  in  adding  insult  to  injury,  uniting  in  their  persons  the 
double  character  of  preservers  of  public  order  and  ruffianly 
executioners  of  innocent  victims.    Many  and  many  a  record  of 


228 


THE  SUFFERING  CHURCH. 


their  barbarity  is  kept  to  this  day.  We  add  a  few,  only  to  jus- 
tify our  necessarily  severe  language  : 

"  The  Rev.  Thaddeus  Donald  and  John  Hanly  received  their 
martyr's  crown  on  the  10th  of  August,  1580.  They  had  long 
labored  among  the  suffering  faithful  along  the  southwestern  coast 
of  Ireland.  When  the  convent  of  Bantry  was  seized  by  the 
English  troops,  these  holy  men  received  their  wished-for  crown 
of  martyrdom.  Being  conducted  to  a  high  rock  impending  over 
the  sea,  they  were  tied  back  to  back,  and  precipitated  into  the 
waves  beneath." 

"  In  the  convent  of  Enniscorthy,  Thaddeus  O'Meran,  father- 
guardian  of  the  convent,  Felix  O'Hara,  and  Henry  Lavhode,  un- 
der the  government  of  Henry  Wallop,  Viceroy  of  Ireland,  were 
taken  prisoners  by  the  soldiers,  for  five  days  tortured  in  various 
ways,  and  then  slain." 

"  Rev.  Donatus  O'Riedy,  of  Connaught,  and  parish  priest  of 
Coolrah,  when  the  soldiers  of  Elizabeth  rushed  into  the  village, 
sought  refuge  in  the  church  ;  but  in  vain,  for  he  was  there  hanged 
near  the  high  altar,  and  afterward  pierced  with  swords,  12th  of 
June,  1582." 

"While  Drury  was  lord-deputy,  about  1577,  Eergal  Ward,  a 
Franciscan,  .  .  .  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  soldiery,  and,  being 
scourged  with  great  barbarity,  was  hanged  from  the  branches  of 
a  tree  with  the  cincture  of  his  own  religious  habit." 

In  order  to  find  a  parallel  to  atrocities  such  as  these,  we  must 
go  back  to  the  record  of  some  of  the  sufferings  of  the  early  mar- 
tyrs— St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch,  for  instance,  who  wrote  of  the 
guards  appointed  to  conduct  him  to  Italy  :  "  From  Syria  as  far 
as  Rome,  I  had  to  fight  with  wild  beasts,  on  sea  and  on  land, 
tied  night  and  day  to  a  pack  of  ten  leopards,  that  is  to  say,  ten 
soldiers  who  kept  me,  and  were  the  more  ferocious  the  more  I 
tried  to  be  kind  to  them." 

Instances  of  such  extreme  cruelty  are  rare,  even  in  the  Acts 
of  the  early  martyrs,  but  they  meet  us  every  moment  in  the 
memoirs  ot  the  days  of  Elizabeth.  Both  the  police-spies  and  the 
soldier-police  were  animated  with  the  rage  and  fury  which  must 
have  possessed  the  soul  of  the  queen  herself ;  for,  after  all,  the 
cruelty  practised  in  her  reign,  and  mostly  under  her  orders,  was 
not  necessary  in  order  to  secure  her  throne  to  her,  during  life  ; 
and,  as  she  could  hope  for  no  posterity  of  her  own,  it  was  not  the 
desire  of  retaining  the  crown  to  her  children  which  could  excuse 
so  much  bloodshed  and  suffering.  She  evidently  followed  the 
promptings  of  a  cruel  heart  in  those  atrocious  measures  which 
constitute  the  feature  of  the  home  policy  of  her  reign.  The  per- 
secution which  raged  incessantly  throughout  her  long  career,  in 
Ireland  and  England,  is  surely  one  of  the  most  bloody  in  the 
annals  of  the  Catholic  Church. 


CHAPTER  X 


ENGLAND  PREPARED  FOB  THE  RECEPTION  OF  PROTESTANTISM  

IRELAND  NOT. 

It  cost  Elizabeth  the  greater  part  of  her  reign  in  time,  and 
all  the  growing  resources  of  a  united  England  in  material,  to 
establish  her  spiritual  supremacy  in  Ireland ;  and  yet,  when,  at 
her  death,  Mountjoy  received  orders  to  conclude  peace  on  honor- 
able terms  with  the  Ulster  chieftains,  her  darling  policy  was 
abandoned,  and  failure,  in  fact,  confessed. 

On  the  30th  of  March,  1603,  Hugh  O'Neill  and  Mountjoy  met 
by  appointment  at  Mellifont  Abbey,  where  the  terms  of  peace 
were  exchanged.  O'Neill,  having  declared  his  submission,  was 
granted  amnesty  for  the  past,  restored  to  his  rank,  notwith- 
standing his  attainder  and  outlawry,  and  reinstated  in  his  dignity 
of  Earl  of  Tyrone.  Himself  and  his  people  were  to  enjoy  the 
"  full  and  free  exercise  of  their  religion ;  "  new  letters-patent  ' 
were  issued  restoring  to  him  and  other  northern  chieftains 
almost  the  whole  of  the  lands  occupied  by  their  respective  clans. 

O'Neill,  on  his  part,  was  to  renounce  forever  his  title  of 
"  O'Neill, "  and  allow  English  law  to  prevail  in  his  territory. 

How  this  last  condition  could  agree  with  the  full  and  free 
exercise  of  the  Catholic  religion,  the  treaty  did  not  explain  ;  but 
it  is  evident  that  the  new  acts  of  Parliament  respecting  religion 
were  not  to  be  included  in  the  English  law  admitted  by  the  Ulster 
chiefs. 

Meanwhile,  the  descendants  of  Strongbow's  companions  had 
been  completely  subdued  in  the  south,  Munster  having  been 
devastated,  and  the  Geraldines  utterly  destroyed.  Yet,  even 
there,  Protestantism  was  not  acknowledged  by  such  of  the  inhab- 
itants as  were  left. 

It  may  be  well  to  compare  here  the  different  results  which 
attended  the  declaration  of  the  queen's  supremacy  in  England 
and  Ireland : 

At  the  commencement  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  England  was 
still,  outwardly  at  least,  as  Catholic  as  Ireland.    Henry  VHI.  had 


230        IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM 


only  aimed  at  starting  a  schism ;  the  Protestantism  established 
under  Edward  had  been  completely  swept  away  during  Mary's 
short  reign.  Could  Elizabeth  only  have  hoped  to  be  acknowl- 
edged queen  by  the  Pope,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  even 
for  political  motives,  she  would  have  refrained  from  disturbing 
the  peace  of  the  country  for  the  sake  of  introducing  heresy. 
Religion  was  nothing  to  her — the  crown  every  thing. 

It  was  not  so  easy  a  matter  for  her  to  establish  heresy  as  for 
Henry  to  introduce  schism.  All  the  bishops  of  Henry's  reign, 
with  the  exception  of  Fisher,  had  renounced  their  allegiance  to 
Pome,  in  order  to  please  the  sovereign  ;  all  the  bishops  of  Mary's 
nomination  remained  faithful  to  Pome ;  and  so  difficult  was  it 
to  find  somebody  who  should  consecrate  the  new  prelates  created 
by  Elizabeth,  that  Catholic  writers  have,  we  believe,  shown  be- 
yond question  that  no  one  of  the  intruding  prelates  was  really 
consecrated. 

Nevertheless,  at  the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  English  people,  with  a  few  individual  exceptions, 
were  Protestant,  and  Protestants  they  have  ever  since  remained. 

In  Dr.  Madden's  "  History  of  the  Penal  Laws,"  we  read : 
"  Father  Campian  was  betrayed  by  one  of  Walsingham's  spies, 
George  Eliot,  and  found  secreted  in  the  house  of  Mr.  Yates,  of 
Lyford,  in  Berkshire,  along  with  two  other  priests,  Messrs.  Ford 
and  Collington.  Eliot  and  his  officers  made  a  show  of  their 
prisoners  to  the  multitude,  and  the  sight  of  the  priests  in  the 
hands  of  the  constables  was  a  matter  of  mockery  to  the  unwise 
multitude.  This  was  a  frequent  occurrence  in  conveying  captured 
priests  from  one  jail  to  another,  or  from  London  to  Oxford,  or 
vice  versa,  and  it  would  seem,  instead  of  finding  sympathy  from 
the  populace,  they  met  with  contumely,  insult,  and  sometimes 
even  brutal  violence.  This  is  singular,  and  not  easily  accounted 
for ;  of  the  fact,  there  can  be  no  doubt. " 

Dr.  Madden  probably  considered  that,  within  a  few  years 
after  the  change  of  religion,  the  English  people  ought  to  have 
shown  themselves  as  firm  Catholics  as  did  the  Irish.  But  the 
explanation  of  the  contumely  and  violence  is  easy :  it  was  an 
English  and  not  an  Irish  populace.  The  first  had  altogether 
forgotten  the  faith  of  their  childhood,  the  second  could  not  be 
brought  to  forsake  it.  The  difficulty,  in  accounting  for  the  dif- 
ference between  them,  is  in  getting  at  its  true  cause ;  and  to  us 
it  seems  that  one  of  the  chief  causes  was  the  difference  of  race. 

The  English  upper  classes,  as  a  whole,  were  utterly  indif- 
ferent to  religion  ;  the  one  thing  which  affected  them,  soul  and 
body,  was  their  temporal  interests,  and,  to  judge  by  their  ready 
acquiescence  in  all  the  changes  set  forth  at  the  commencement 
of  the  last  chapter,  they  would  as  soon  have  turned  Mussulmen  as 
Calvinists.    The  lower  classes,  at  first  merely  passive,  became 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  231 


afterward  possessed  by  a  genuine  fanaticism  for  the  new  creed 
established  by  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  ;  so  that,  from  that 
period  until  quite  recently — and  the  spirit  still  lives — an  English 
mob  was  always  ready  to  demolish  Catholic  chapels,  and  establish- 
ments of  any  kind,  wherever  the  piety  of  a  few  had  succeeded  in 
erecting  such,  however  quietly. 

It  is  evident  from  the  facts  mentioned  that,  prior  even  to  that 
extraordinary  religious  revolution  called  the  Reformation,  the 
Catholic  faith  did  not  possess  a  firm  hold  upon  the  English  mind 
and  heart,  whatever  may  have  been  the  case  in  previous  ages. 
It  is  clear  that  even  "the  people  "  in  England  were  not  ready  to 
submit  to  any  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  their  religion. 

There  is  small  doubt  that  Elizabeth  foresaw  this,  and  expect- 
ed but  little  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  English  nobility  and 
people  to  the  changes  she  purposed  effecting.  Had  she  imagined 
that  the  nation  would  have  been  ready  to  submit  to  any  sacrifice 
rather  than  surrender  their  religion,  she  would  at  least  have  been 
more  cautious  in  the  promulgation  of  her  measures,  even  though 
she  had  determined  to  sever  her  kingdom  from  Home.  She 
might  have  rested  content  with  the  schism  introduced  by  her 
father,  and  this  indeed  would  have  sufficed  for  the  carrying  out 
of  her  political  schemes. 

But  she  knew  her  countrvmen  too  well  to  accredit  them  with 
a  religious  devotion  which,  if  they  ever  possessed,  had  long  ago 
died  out.  She  saw  that  England  was  ripe  for  heresy,  and  the 
result  confirmed  her  worldly  sagacity.  How  came  it,  then,  that 
the  change  which  was  absolutely  impossible  in  Ireland,  was  so 
easily  effected  in  the  other  country  ?  Or,  to  generalize  the 
question  :  How  is  it  that,  to  speak  generally,  the  nations  of 
Northern  Europe  embraced  Protestantism  so  readily,  while  those 
of  Southern  Europe  refused  to  receive  it,  or  were  only  slightly 
affected  by  it  ?  Banke  has  remarked  that,  when,  after  the  first 
outbreak  in  the  North,  the  movement  had  reached  a  certain 
point  in  time  and  space,  it  stopped,  and,  instead  of  advancing 
further,  appeared  to  recede,  or  at  least  stood  still. 

Many  Protestant  writers  have  attempted  a  weak  and  flippant 
solution  of  the  question,  and  we  are  continually  told  of  the  su- 
perior enlightenment  of  the  northern  races,  of  their  attachment 
to  liberty,  of  their  higher  civilization,  and  other  very  fine  and 
very  easily-quoted  things  of  the  same  kind,  which,  at  the  present 
moment,  are  admitted  as  truths  by  many,  and  esteemed  an 
unanswerable  explanations  of  the  phenomenon.  According  to 
this  opinion,  therefore,  the  southern  races  were  more  ignorant, 
less  civilized,  more  readily  duped  by  priestcraft  and  king- 
craft ;  above  all,  readier  to  bow  to  despotism,  and  indifferent  to 
freedom. 

Catholic  writers,  Balmez  principally,  have  often  given  a  satis- 


232       IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


factory  answer  to  the  question ;  yet,  the  replies  which  they  have 
made  to  the  various  sophisms  touched  upon,  have  seemingly 
produced  no  effect  on  the  modern  masses,  who  continue  steadfast 
in  their  belief  of  what  has  been  so  often  refuted.  It  would  be 
presumptuous  and  probably  quite  useless,  on  our  part,  to  enter 
into  a  lengthened  discussion  of  the  question.  But,  when  confined 
to  England,  it  is  a  kind  of  test  to  be  applied  to  ail  those  subjects 
of  civilization  and  liberty,  and  is  so  clear  and  true  that  it  cannot 
leave  the  least  room  for  doubt  or  hesitation :  moreover,  as  it 
necessarily  enters  into  the  inquiry  which  forms  the  heading  of 
this  chapter,  it  cannot  be  entirely  laid  aside. 

All  that  we  purpose  doing  is,  discovering  why  the  northern 
nations  fell  a  prey  more  readily  to  the  disorganizing  doctrines  of 
Protestantism  than  the  southern.  The  general  fickleness  of  the 
human  mind,  which  is  so  well  brought  out  by  the  great  Spanish 
writer,  does  not  strike  us  as  a  sufficient  cause  ;  for  the  mind  of 
southern  peoples  is  certainly  not  less  fickle,  on  many  points  at 
least,  than  that  of  other  races. 

In  our  comparison  between  the  North  and  the  South,  we 
class  the  Irish  with  the  latter,  although,  geographically,  they  be- 
long to  the  former,  and,  indeed,  constitute  the  only  northern  na- 
tion which  remained  faithful  to  the  Church. 

First,  let  us  state  the  broad  facts  for  which  we  wish  to  assign 
some  satisfactory  reasons. 

After  the  social  convulsions  which  attended  the  chancre  of  re- 
ligion  had  subsided  somewhat,  it  was  found  that  Protestantism 
had  invaded  the  three  Scandinavian  kingdoms,  to  the  almost 
total  exclusion  of  Catholicism,  to  such  an  extent,  indeed,  that, 
until  quite  recently,  it  was  death  or  transportation  for  any  per- 
son therein  to  return  to  the  bosom  of  the  mother  Church. 

The  same  statement  is  true,  to  almost  the  same  extent,  of 
Northern  Germany,  where  open  persecution,  or  rather  war, 
raged  until  the  establishment  of  "  religious  peace  "  toward  1608. 
Saxony,  whence  the  heresy  sprang,  was  its  centre  and  stronghold 
in  Germany ;  and  the  Saxons  were  Scandinavians,  having  crossed 
over  from  the  southern  borders  of  the  Baltic,  where,  for  a  long 
time,  they  dwelt  in  constant  intercourse  with  the  Danes,  Nor- 
wegians, and  Swedes. 

Saxon  and  Norman  England  was  found  to  be,  at  the  end  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  almost  entirely  Protestant,  and  the  perse- 
cution of  the  comparatively  few  Catholics  who  survived  flour- 
ished there  in  full  vigor. 

A  singular  phenomenon  presented  itself  in  the  Low  Coun- 
tries. That  portion  of  them  subsequently  known  as  Holland, 
which  was  first  invaded  and  peopled  by  the  Northmen  of  TTal- 
cheren,  became  almost  entirely  Protestant,  while  Belgium,  which 
was  originally  Celtic,  remained  Catholic. 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  233 


Bavaria,  Austria,  and  Switzerland,  were  divided  between 
Protestantism  and  Catholicity,  and  the  division  exists  to  this  dav. 

In  France  a  section  only  of  the  nobility,  which  was  originally 
Norman  as  well  as  Frank,  and  under  feudalism  had  become 
thoroughly  permeated  by  the  northern  spirit,  was  found  to  have 
embraced  the  new  doctrines,  which  were  repudiated  by  the  peo- 
ple of  Celtic  origin.  It  is  true  that,  later  on,  the  Cevennes  moun- 
taineers received  Protestantism  from  the  old  Waldenses  ;  but  we 
are  presenting  a  broad  sketch,  and  do  not  deny  that  several 
minor  lineaments  may  not  fall  in  with  the  general  picture. 

In  Italy  only  literary  men,  in  Spain  a  few  rigorist  prelates 
and  monks,  showed  any  inclination  toward  the  "  reform  "  party. 

On  the  whole,  then,  it  is  safe  to  conclude  that  the  Scandina- 
vian mind  was  congenial  to  Protestantism. 

We  say  the  Scandinavian  mind,  because  the  Scandinavian 
race  extended,  not  only  through  Scandinavia  proper,  but  also 
through  Northern  Germanv,  along  the  Baltic  Sea  and  German 

O  \J  '     _____  o 

Ocean  ;  through  Holland  by  Walcheren  ;  through  a  portion  of 
Central  and  Southern  Germany,  as  far  down  as  Switzerland, 
which  was  invaded  by  Saxons  at  the  time  of  Charlemagne,  and 
after  him,  until  Otho  the  Great  gave  them  their  final  check,  and 
subdued  them  more  thoroughly  than  the  great  Charles  had  suc- 
ceeded in  doing. 

Common  opinion  traces  the  Scandinavians  and  Germans  back 
to  the  same  race.  In  the  generic  sense,  this  is  true  ;  and  all  the 
Indo-Germanic  nations  may  have  originally  belonged  to  the  same 
parent  stock  ;  but,  specifically,  differences  of  so  striking  a  nature, 
present  themselves  in  that  immense  branch  of  the  human  family, 
that  the  existence  of  sub-races  of  a  definite  character,  presuppos- 
ing different  and  sometimes  opposite  tendencies,  must  be  ad- 
mitted. 

Who  can  imagine  that  the  Germans  proper  are  identical  with 
the  Hindoos,  although  by  language  they,  in  common  with  the 
greater  part  of  European  nations,  may  belong  to  the  same  parent 
stock  ?  In  like  manner,  the  Germanic  tribes,  although  possess- 
ing many  things  in  common  with  the  Scandinavian  race,  differ 
from  it  in  various  respects. 

The  best  ethnographic  writers  admit  that  the  Scandinavian 
race,  which  they,  in  our  opinion  improperly,  name  Gothic,  dif- 
fered greatly  in  its  language  from  the  Teutonic.  The  language 
of  the  first,  retained  in  its  purity  in  Iceland  to  this  day,  soon  be- 
came mixed  up  with  German  proper  in  Denmark,  Sweden,  and 
even  in  Norway  to  a  great  extent. '  The  languages  differed  there- 
fore originally,  as  did,  consequently,  the  races.  Even  at  this  very 
moment  an  effort  is  being  made  by  Scandinavians  to  establish 
the  difference  between  themselves  and  the  Teutons  with  respect 
to  language  and  nationality. 


234:        IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


How  far  the  religion  of  both  was  identical  is  a  difficult  ques- 
tion. We  believe  it  very  probable  that  the  worship  of  Thor, 
Odin,  and  Frigga,  was  purely  Scandinavian,  and  penetrated  Ger- 
many, as  far  as  Switzerland,  with  the  Saxons.  Hertha,  accord- 
ing to  Tacitus,  was  the  supreme  goddess  of  the  Germans.  She 
had  no  place  in  Scandinavian  mythology.  Ipsambul,  so  re- 
nowned among  the  Teutons,  was  quite  unknown  in  Scandinavia. 
The  Germans,  in  common  with  the  Celts,  considered  the  build- 
ing of  temples  unworthy  the  Deity  ;  whereas,  the  Scandinavian 
temples,  chiefly  the  monstrous  one  of  Upsala,  are  well  known. 
Many  other  such  facts  might  be  brought  out  to  show  the  differ- 
ence of  their  religions. 

The  Germans  showed  themselves  from  the  beginning  attached 
to  a  country  life  ;  and  we  know  how  the  Prankish  Merovingian 
kings  loved  to  dwell  in  the  country.  The  Scandinavians  only 
cared  for  the  sea,  and  manifested  by  their  skill  in  navigation  how 
they  differed  from  the  Germans,  who  were  less  inclined  even 
than  the  Celts  for  large  naval  expeditions. 

All  this  is  merely  given  as  strong  conjecture,  not  as  proof 
positive  amounting  to  demonstration,  of  the  real  difference  be- 
tween the  two  races — the  Germanic  and  Scandinavian. 

But  how  was  Protestantism  congenial  to  the  Scandinavian 
mind  ?  This  second  question  is  of  still  greater  importance  than 
the  first. 

In  the  earlier  portion  of  the  book,  we  passed  in  review  the 
character  of  the  tribes,  once  clustered  around  the  Baltic,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Finns,  who  dwelt  along  the  eastern  coast ; 
and,  grounding  our  opinion  on  unquestionable  authorities,  we 
found  that  character  to  consist  mainly  of  cruelty,  boldness^  ra- 
pacity, system,  and  a  spirit  of  enterprise  in  trade  and  navigation. 

When  they  embraced  Christianity,  it  undoubtedly  modified 
their  character  to  a  great  extent,  and  many  holy  people  lived 
among  them,  some  ot  whom  the  Church  has  numbered  among 
the  6aints.  But  the  conquest  of  these  ferocious  pirates  was  un- 
doubtedly the  greatest  triumph  ever  achieved  by  the  holy  Spouse 
of  Christ. 

Yet,  even  after  becoming  Christian,  they  preserved  for  a  long 
time — we  speak  not  now  of  the  present  day — deep  features  of 
their  former  character,  among  others  the  old  spirit  of  rapacity, 
and  that  systematic  boldness  which,  when  occasion  demands,  ia 
ever  ready  to  intrench  upon  the  rights  of  others.  They  soon 
displayed,  also,  a  general  tendency  to  subject  spiritual  matters  to 
individual  reason,  and  the  great*  among  them  to  interfere  and 
meddle  with  religious  affairs.  The  Dukes  of  Normandy,  the 
Kings  of  England,  and  the  Saxon  Emperors  of  Germany,  seldom 
ceased  disputing  the  rights  of  spiritual  authority ;  and  the  learned 
among  them  were  forward  to  question  the  supremacy  of  Home 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  235 


m  many  things,  and  to  argue  against  what  other  people,  more 
religiously  inclined,  would  have  admitted  without  controversy. 
That  spirit  of  speculation,  to  which  the  Irish  Four  Masters  part- 
ly ascribed  the  introduction  of  Protestantism  into  England,  was 
rampant  in  the  schools  of  these  northern  nations,  when  a  superior 
civilization  gave  rise  to  the  erection  of  universities  and  colleges 
in  their  midst. 

But  over  and  above  that  systematic  philosophical  spirit,  their 
character  was  deeply  imbued  with  a  material  rapacity  which, 
after  all,  has  always  constituted  the  great  vice  of  those  northern 
tribes.  It  is  unnecessary  to  remind  the  reader  that,  in  England 
chiefly,  Protestantism  was  particularly  grateful  to  the  avaricious 
longings  of  the  courtiers  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth.  The 
confiscation  of  ecclesiastical  property  and  its  distribution  among 
the  great  of  the  nation  was  the  chief  incentive  which  moved 
them  to  adopt  the  convenient  doctrines  of  the  new  order,  and 
subvert  the  old  religion  of  the  country.  This  rapacious  spirit 
showed  itself  also  in  Germany,  though  not  so  conspicuously  as  in 
England  ;  and  certainly,  in  both  countries,  the  universal  confis- 
cation of  the  estates  of  religious  houses,  and  the  robbery  of  the 
plate  and  jewels  of  the  churches,  are  prominent  features  in  the 
history  of  the  great  Reformation. 

William  Cobbett  has  written  eloquently  on  this  subject,  and 
marshalled  an  immense  array  of  facts  so  difficult  of  denial  that 
the  defenders  of  Protestantism  were  compelled  to  resort  to  the 
petty  subterfuge  of  retorting  that  the  great  English  radical  was 
a  mere  partisan,  who  never  spoke  sincerely,  but  always  sup- 
ported the  theory  he  happened  to  take  up  by  exaggerated  and 
distorted  facts,  which  no  one  was  bound  to  admit  on  his  respon- 
sibility. Such  was  their  reply  ;  but  the  awkward  facts  remained 
and  remain  still  unchallenged. 

But,  since  Cobbett,  men  who  could  not  be  accused  of  par- 
tisanship and  exaggeration  have  published  authentic  accounts  of 
the  unbounded  rapacity  of  the  Reformers  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, in  England  particularly,  which  all  impartial  men  are  bound 
to  respect,  and  not  attribute  to  any  unworthy  motive,  since  they 
are  supported  even  by  Protestant  authorities.  We  quote  a  few, 
taken  from  the  "  History  of  the  Penal  Laws  "  by  Dr.  R.  R. 
Madden : 

"  The  Earl  of  Warwick,  afterward  Duke  of  Northumber- 
land, was  the  first  of  the  aristocracy  in  England  who  inveighed 
publicly  against  the  superfluity  of  episcopal  habits,  the  expense 
of  vestments  and  surplices,  and  ended  in  denouncing  altars 
and  the  '  mummery '  of  crucifixes,  pictures  and  images  in 
churches. 

"  The  earl  had  an  eye  to  the  Church  plate,  and  the  precioua 
jewels  that  ornamented  the  tabernacles  and  ciboriums.  Many 


236        IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


courtiers  soon  were  moved  by  a  similar  zeal-  for  religion — a  lust 
for  the  gold,  silver,  and  jewels  of  the  churches.  In  a  short 
time,  not  only  the  property  of  churches,  but  the  possession  of 
rich  bishoprics  and  sees,  were  shared  among  the  favorites  of 
Cranmer  and  the  protector  (Somerset) :  as  were  those  of  the 
See  of  Lincoln,  1  with  all  its  manors,  save  one  ; '  the  Bishopric 
of  Durham,  which  was  allotted  to  Dudley,  Duke  of  Northumber- 
land ;  of  Bath  and  Wells,  eighteen  or  twenty  of  whose  manors, 
in  Somerset,  were  made  a  present  of  to  the  protector,  with  a 
view  of  protecting  the  remainder." 

A  number  of  similar  details  are  to  be  found  in  the  pages  of 
the  same  author. 

Dr.  Heylin,  a  Protestant,  says  :  "  That  the  consideration  of 
profit  did  advance  this  work — of  the  Reformation — as  much 
as  any  other,  if  perchance  not  more,  may  be  collected  from  an 
inquiry  made  two  years  after,  in  which  (inquiry)  it  was  to  be 
interrogated  :  £  What  jewels  of  gold,  or  silver  crosses,  candle- 
sticks, censers,  chalices,  copes,  and  other  vestments,  were  then  re- 
maining in  any  of  the  cathedral  or  parochial  churches,  or,  other- 
wise, had  been  embezzled  or  taken  away  V.  .  .  The  leaving," 
adds  Dr.  Heylin,  "  of  one  chalice  to  every  church,  with  a  cloth 
or  covering  for  the  communion-table,  being  thought  sufficient. 
The  taking  down  of  altars  by  command,  was  followed  by  the 
substitution  of  a  board,  called  the  Lord's  Board,  and  subsequent- 
ly of  a  table,  by  the  determination  of  Bishop  Ridley. 

"  Many  private  persons'  parlors  were  hung  with  altar-cloths, 
their  tables  and  beds  covered  with  copes,  instead  of  carpets  and 
coverlets,  and  many  made  carousing  cups  of  the  sacred  chalices, 
as  once  Belshazzar  celebrated  his  drunken  feasts  in  the  sanctified 
vessels  of  the  Temple.  It  was  a  sorry  house,  not  worth  the 
naming,  which  had  not  something  of  this  furniture  in  it,  though 
it  were  only  a  fair  large  cushion  made  of  a  cope  or  altar-cloth,  to 
adorn  their  windows,  and  to  make  their  chairs  appear  to  have 
somewhat  in  them  of  a  chair  of  state." 

Could  such  scenes  as  these  have  been  surpassed  by  what  took 
place  during  the  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  centuries,  in  the  rude 
towns  of  Norway  and  Denmark,  at  the  return  of  a  powerful  sea- 
kdng,  with  his  large  fleet,  from  a  piratical  excursion  into  South- 
ern Europe,  when  the  spoils  of  many  a  Christian  church  and 
wealthy  house  went  to  adorn  the  savage  dwellings  of  those 
barbarians  ?  Adam  of  Bremen  relates  how  he  saw,  with  his  own 
eyes,  the  rich  products  of  European  art  and  industry  accumulated 
in  the  palace  of  the  King  of  Denmark,  and  in  the  loathsome 
dwellings  of  the  nobility,  or  exposed  for  sale  in  the  public  markets 
of  the  city. 

But  rapacity  formed  only  one  characteristic  of  the  Scandina- 
vians ;  the  mind  of  the  people,  moreover,  showed  itself,  notwith- 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  237 


Btanding  the  intricate  and  monstrous  mythology  which  it  had 
created  when  pagan,  of  a  rationalistic  and  anti-supernatural 
tendency.  Their  mind  was  naturally  systematic  and  reasoning  ; 
it  discussed  spiritual  matters  in  all  their  material  aspects,  and 
thus  gave  rise  to  those  speculations  which  soon  became  the  source 
of  heresy.  Hence,  in  England  and  the  north  of  Germany,  the 
power  of  Home  was  always  called  in  question  ;  and  as  the 
English  mind  was  altogether  Scandinavian,  while  that  of  the 
Germans  was  mixed  with  more  of  a  southern  disposition,  the 
chief  trouble  in  Germany,  between  the  empire  and  the  Roman 
Church,  lay  in  the  question  of  investitures,  which  combined  a 
material  and  spiritual  aspect,  whereas,  in  England,  the  quarrel 
was  almost  invariably  of  a  pecuniary  nature,  as,  for  instance, 
Peter's  pence. 

Even  in  the  most  Catholic  times,  the  English  made  a  bitter 
grievance  of  the  levying  of  Peter's  pence  among  them,  and  of 
the  giving  of  English  benefices  to  prelates  of  other  nations,  which 
also  resolved  itself  into  a  question  of  revenue  or  money.  And 
so  characteristic  was  the  grievance  of  the  whole  nation  that  it 
was  restricted  to  no  class,  churchmen  and  monks  being  as  loud 
in  their  denunciations  of  Pome  as  the  king  and  the  nobles ; 
and  thus  the  theological  questions  of  the  papal  supremacy  and  of 
ecclesiastical  authority  generally  took  with  them  quite  a  mate- 
rial form.  The  diatribes  of  the  Benedictine  monk  Matthew  Paris 
are  well  known,  and  their  worldly  spirit  can  only  excite  in  us 
pity  that  they  should  have  been  the  chief  cause  of  the  destruction 
of  his  own  order  in  England  and  Ireland,  and  of  the  total  spoli- 
ation of  the  religious  houses  in  whose  behalf  he  imagined  that 
he  wrote. 

If  the  harm  done  by  those  contemptible  wranglings  about 
Peter's  pence  and  benefices  had  been  confined  to  depriving  the 
ontifical  exchequer  of  a  revenue  which  was  cheerfully  granted 
y  other  nations  to  aid  the  Father  of  the  Faithful,  the  result  was 
to  be  regretted  ;  but,  after  all,  Christendom  would  not  have  suf- 
fered in  a  much  more  sensible  quarter.  But  in  England,  the 
question  passed  immediately  to  the  election  of  bishops  and 
abbots,  and  thus  the  opposition  to  Pome  gradually  assumed 
much  vaster  proportions. 

The  nation,  also,  in  the  main,  sided  with  the  kings  against 
the  popes.  Every  burgher  of  London,  York,  or  Canterbury,  got 
it  into  his  head  that  Pome  had  formed  deep  designs  of  spoliation 
against  his  private  property,  and  purposed  diving  deep  into  his 
private  purse.  In  such  a  state  of  nublic  opinion,  respect  for 
spiritual  authority  could  not  fail  to  diminish  and  finally  die  out 
altogether ;  and,  when  the  voice  of  the  Pontiff  was  beard  on  im- 
portant subjects  in  which  the  best  interests  of  the  nation  were 
involved,  even  the  clearest  proof  that  Pome  was  right,  and  de- 


238        IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


sired  only  the  good  of  the  people,  could  not  entirely  dispel  the 
suspicious  fears  and  distrusts  which  must  ever  lurk  in  the  mind 
of  the  miser  against  those  he  imagines  wish  to  rob  him. 

It  is  not  possible  to  enter  here  into  further  details,  but,  if  the 
reader  wish  for  stronger  proofs  of  the  "questioning  spirit,"  "rea- 
soning mistrust,"  and  "  systematic  doggedness,"  natural  to  the 
Scandinavian  mind,  he  has  only  to  reflect  on  what  took  place  in 
England  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  Every  question  re- 
specting the  soul,  every  supernatural  aspiration  of  the  Christian, 
every  emotion  of  a  living  conscience,  appears  to  be  altogether  ab- 
sent from  all  those  English  nobles,  prelates,  theologians,  learned 
university  men,  even  simple  priests  and  monks  often,  save  a  very 
few  who,  with  the  noble  Thomas  More,  thought  that  "  twenty 
years  of  an  easy  life  could  not  without  folly  be  compared  with  an 
eternity  of  bliss."  The  reasoning  faculty  of  the  mind,  nourished 
on  "  speculations,"  had  replaced  faith,  and,  every  thing  of  the 
supernatural  order  being  obliterated,  nothing  was  left  but  world- 
ly wisdom  and  material  aspirations  for  temporal  well-being. 

By  reviewing  other  characteristics  of  the  Scandinavian  race, 
we  might  arrive  at  the  same  conclusion  ;  but  our  space  forbids 
us  to  go  into  them.  After  what  has  been  said,  however,  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  well  prepared  was  the  English  nation  for  accept- 
ing the  change  of  religion  almost  without  a  murmur. 

There  was,  indeed,  some  expression  of  indignation  on  the 
part  of  the  people  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Edward  VI., 
when  the  desecration  of  the  churches  began.  u  Various  commo- 
tions," says  Dr.  Madden,  "  took  place  in  consequence  of  the  re- 
viling of  the  sacrament,  the  casting  it  out  of  the  churches  in 
some  places,  the  tearing  down  of  altars  and  images ;  in  one  of 
which  tumults,  one  of  the  authorities  was  stabbed,  in  the  act  of 
demolishing  some  objects  of  veneration  in  a  church. 

"  The  whole  kingdom,  in  short,  was  in  commotion,  but  par- 
ticularly Devonshire  and  Norfolk.  In  the  former  county,  the  in- 
surgents besieged  Devon  ;  a  noble  lord  was  sent  against  them, 
and,  being  reenforced  by  the  Walloons — a  set  of  German  mer- 
cenaries brought  over  to  enable  the  government  to  carry  out 
their  plans — his  lordship  defeated  these  insurgents,  and  many 
were  executed  by  martial  law." 

But  this  remnant  of  affection  for  the  religion  of  their  fathers 
seems  to  have  soon  died  out,  since  at  the  death  of  Edward  the 
people  appeared  to  have  become  thoroughly  converted  to  the 
new  doctrines.  At  the  very  coronation  of  Mary,  a  Catholic 
clergyman  having  prayed  for  the  dead  and  denounced  the  perse- 
cutions of  the  previous  reign,  a  tumult  took  place  ;  the  preacher 
was  insulted,  and  compelled  to  leave  the  pulpit.  What  wonder, 
then,  that,  at  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  England  was  thoroughly 
Protestant  ? 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  239 


We  are  very  far  from  ignoring  the  noble  examples  of  attach- 
ment to  their  religion  displayed  by  Christian  heroes  of  every  class 
in  England  during  those  disastrous  days.  The  touching  biogra- 
phies of  the  English  martyrs,  told  in  the  simple  pages  of  Bishop 
Challoner,  cannot  be  read  without  admiration.  The  feeling  pro- 
duced on  the  Catholic  reader  is  precisely  that  arising  from  a 
perusal  of  the  Acts  of  the  Christian  martyrs  under  the  Roman 
emperors,  which  have  so  often  strengthened  our  faith  and  drawn 
tears  of  sorrow  from  our  eyes.  At  this  moment,  particularly 
when  so  many  details,  hitherto  hidden,  of  the  lives  of  Catholics, 
religions,  secular  priests,  laymen,  women,  during  those  times,  are 
coming  to  light  in  manuscripts  religiously  preserved  by  private 
families,  and  at  last  being  published  for  the  edification  of  all,  the 
story  is  moving  as  well  as  inspiring  of  the  heroism  displayed  by 
them,  not  only  on  the  public  scaffold,  but  in  obscure  and  loath- 
some jails,  in  retreats  and  painful  seclusion,  continuing  during 
long  years  of  an  obscure  life,  and  ending  only  in  a  more  obscure 
death,  when  the  victim  of  persecution  was  fortunate  enough  to 
escape  capture.  There  is  no  doubt  that,  when  the  wrhole  story 
of  the  hunted  Catholics  in  England  shall  be  known,  as  moving  a 
narrative  of  their  virtues  will  be  written  as  can  be  furnished  by 
the  ecclesiastical  annals  of  any  people. 

Nevertheless,  wmat  has  been  said  of  the  nation,  as  a  nation, 
remains  a  sad  fact  which  cannot  be  doubted.  Those  noble  ex- 
ceptions only  prove  that  the  promptings  of  race  are  not  supreme, 
and  that  God's  grace  can  exalt  human  nature  from  whatever 
level. 

How  different  were  the  nations  of  the  Latin  and  Celtic  stock ! 
With  them  the  attachment  to  the  religion  of  their  fathers  was 
not  the  exception,  but  the  rule,  and  it  is  only  necessary  to  bear 
in  mind  what  the  Abbe  McGeoghegan  has  said — that,  at  the 
death  of  Elizabeth,  scarcely  sixty  Irishmen,  take  them  all  in  all, 
had  professed  the  new  doctrines — in  order  at  once  to  comprehend 
the  steady  tendency  toward  the  path  of  duty  imparted  by  true 
nobility  of  blood,  Nor  did  the  Irish  stand  alone  in  this  stead- 
fastness ;  it  is  needless  to  call  to  mind  how  the  people  generally 
throughout  France,  and  particularly  in  Paris,  acted  at  the  time 
when  the  Huguenot  noblemen  would  have  rooted  in  the  soil  the 
errors  planted  there  before,  and  already  bearing  fruit  in  Ger- 
man}7, Switzerland,  and  England. 

It  looks  as  though  we  had  lost  sight  of  the  interesting  ques- 
tion proposed  at  the  outset,  and  of  which  so  far  not  a  word  has 
been  said — whether  Protestantism  spread  so  readily  in  the  North, 
because  it  found  that  region  peopled  with  races  better  disposed 
for  civilization,  if  not  taking  the  lead  already  in  that  respect,  and 
men  ardent  for  freedom  and  impatient  of  servitude  of  any  kind. 
We  stated  that  the  solution  of  this  question,  particularly  in  the 


240 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


case  of  England,  is  clear,  and  consequently  not  to  be  discarded 
on  account  of  previous  solutions  of  the  same  question,  which 
have  scarcely  met  with  any  attention  from  the  adverse  side. 

One  thing  certainly  undeniable  is,  that  neither  in  its  origin, 
nor  even  in  its  consequences,  can  Protestantism  be  esteemed  as 
in  any  sense  the  promoter  of  freedom  and  civilization  in  the 
British  islands. 

It  has  always  struck  us  as  strange  that  sensible  men,  ac- 
quainted with  history,  could  maintain  that  an  aspiration  after 
freedom  and  a  higher  civilization  gave  to  Germany  and  England 
a  leaning  toward  Protestantism.  We  can  understand  how  the 
state  of  Europe  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  may 
give  a  coloring  to  the  statement  of  a  partisan  writer,  desirous  of 
explaining  in  these  modern  times  the  greater  amount  of  freedom 
really  enjoyed  in  England,  and  the  advanced  material  prosperity 
visible  generally  among  Protestant  Northern  nations.  So  much 
we  can  understand.  But,  to  make  Protestantism  the  origin  of 
freedom  and  civilization,  and  ascribe  to  it  what  happened  subse- 
quent to  its  spread  indeed,  but  what  really  resulted  from  very 
different  causes,  passes  our  comprehension. 

As  far  as  freedom  goes,  the  most  superficial  reader  must 
know  that  there  was  not  a  particle  of  it  left  in  England  when 
Protestantism  commenced ;  and  it  were  easy  to  show  that  there 
was  less  of  it  in  Germany  than  in  Italy,  Spain,  and  even  France. 

Who  can  mention  English  freedom  in  the  same  breath  with 
Henry  and  Elizabeth  Tudor  %  How  could  the  actions  of  those 
two  members  of  the  family  advance  it  in  the  least  degree,  and 
was  it  not  precisely  the  slavish  disposition  of  the  English  people 
at  the  time  which  prepared  them  so  admirably  for  the  reception 
of  German  heresy  %  The  people  were  treated  like  a  set  of  slaves, 
and  stood  for  nothing  in  the  designs  of  those  great  political 
rulers.  In  the  verv  highest  of  the  aristocracv,  there  lingered 
not  a  spark  of  the  old  brave  spirit  which  wrung  Magna  Charta 
from  the  heart  of  a  weak  sovereign.  The  king  or  queen  could 
fearlessly  trample  on  every  privilege  of  the  nobility,  send  the 
proudest  lords  of  the  nation  to  the  block,  almost  without  trial, 
and  confiscate  to  the  swelling  of  the  royal  purse  the  immense 
estates  of  the  first  English  families.  There  is  no  need  of  proofs 
for  this.  The  proofs  are  the  records,  the  headings,  as  it  were,  of 
the  history  of  the  times  which  one  may  read  as  he  runs  ;  it  con- 
stitutes the  very  essence  of  their  history  ;  and  events  of  the  six- 
teenth century  in  England  scarcely  present  us  with  any  thing 
else.  This  state  of  things  was  the  natural  result  of  the  general 
anarchy  which  prevailed  during  the  "  Wars  of  the  Poses." 

A  more  interesting  and  intricate  question  still  might  be 
raised  here  :  how  to  explain  the  appearance  of  such  a  phenome- 
non in  so  proud  a  nation  ?    Had  the  Catholic  religion,  which,  up 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


to  that  time,  had  been  the  only  religion  of  the  country,  any  thing 
to  do  with  the  matter  ?  These  questions  might  furnish  material 
for  a  very  animated  discussion.  But,  with  regard  to  the  fact 
itself — the  slavish  disposition  of  Englishmen  at  that  time  under 
kingly  and  queenly  rule — no  doubt  can  possibly  exist. 

To  show  that  Catholicity  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  intro- 
duction of  such  a  despotism,  would  give  rise  to  a  dissertation  too 
long  for  us  to  enter  upon.  We  merely  offer  a  few  suggestions, 
which,  we  think,  will  prove  sufficient  and  satisfactory  for  our 
purpose  to  every  candid  reader : 

I.  Catholic  theology  had  certainly  never  brought  about  such 
a  state  of  affairs.  In  all  Catholic  schools  of  the  day,  in  England 
as  on  the  Continent,  St.  Thomas  was  the  great  authority,  and 
his  work,  " De  Regimine  Pri/ncipum"  was  in  the  hands  of  all 
Catholic  students.    Luther  was  the  first  to  reject  St.  Thomas. 

In  this  book,  all  were  taught  that,  if,  among  the  various  kinds 
of  government,  "  that  of  a  king  is  best,"  in  the  opinion  of  the 
author,  "  that  of  a  tyrant  is  the  worst."  And  a  tyrant  he  de- 
fines as  "  any  ruler  who  despises  the  common  good,  and  seeks 
his  private  advantage." 

In  that  book  of  the  great  doctor,  all  may  read  :  "  The  farther 
the  government  recedes  from  the  common  weal,  the  more  unjust 
is  it.  It  recedes  farther  from  the  common  weal  in  an  oligarchy, 
in  which  the  welfare  of  a  few  is  sought,  than  in  a  democracy, 
whose  object  is  the  good  of  the  many.  .  .  .  But  farther  still  does 
it  recede  from  the  common  weal  in  a  tyrannous  government,  by 
which  the  good  of  one  alone  is  sought." 

The  general  consequence  which  St.  Thomas  draws  from  this 
doctrine  is,  that,  "  if  a  ruler  governs  a  multitude  of  freemen  for 
the  common  good  of  the  multitude,  the  government  will  be  good 
and  just  as  becomes  freemen." 

Such  was  the  political  doctrine  taught  in  the  Catholic  univer- 
sities of  Europe  until  the  sixteenth  century ;  but,  in  all  proba- 
bility, this  golden  work,  "  De  Pegimine  Principum"  was  no 
longer  the  text-book  in  the  English  schools  of  the  time  of  Henry 
Tudor. 

But,  when,  entering  into  details,  the  holy  and  learned  author 
oes  on  to  contrast  the  contrary  effects  produced  by  freedom  and 
espotism  on  a  nation,  how  could  Henry  willingly  permit  the 
circulation  of  such  words  as  the  following  ? 

"  It  is  natural  that  men  brought  under  terror"  (a  tyrannical 
government)  "  should  degenerate  into  beings  of  a  slavish  disposi- 
tion, and  become  timid  and  incapable  of  any  manly  and  daring 
enterprise — an  assertion  which  is  proved  by  the  conduct  of  coun- 
tries which  have  been  long  subjected  to  a  despotic  government. 
Solomon  says :  *  When  the  imperious  are  in  power,  men  hide 
away '  in  order  to  escape  the  crueltv  of  tyrants,  nor  is  it  astonish- 


242       IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


ing ;  for  a  man  governing  without  law,  and  according  to  his  own 
caprice,  differs  in  nothing  from  a  beast  of  prey.  Hence,  Solomon 
designates  an  impious  ruler  as  '  a  roaring  lion  and  a  ravenous 
bear.' 

"  Because,  therefore,  the  government  of  one  is  to  be  preferred 
— which  is  the  best — and  because  this  government  is  liable  to 
degenerate  into  tyranny — which  has  been  proved  to  be  the  worst 
— hence,  the  most  diligent  care  is  to  be  taken  so  to  regulate 
the  establishment  of  a  king  over  the  people,  that  he  may  not  fall 
into  tyranny." 

Finally,  St.  Thomas  epitomizes  the  doctrines  of  this  whole 
book  in  his  " Summa"  as  follows  :  "  A  tyrannical  government  is 
unjust,  being  administered,  not  for  the  common  good,  but  for  the 
private  good  of  the  ruler ;  therefore,  its  overthrow  is  not  sedi- 
tion, unless  when  the  subversion  of  tyranny  is  so  inordinately 
pursued  that  the  multitude  suffers  more  from  its  overthrow  than 
from  the  existence  of  the  government." 

The  subject  might  be  illustrated  by  any  quantity  of  extracts 
from  the  writings  of  other  great  theologians  of  the  middle  ages ; 
but  what  we  have  said  is  enough  for  our  purpose.  It  is  manifest 
that  Catholic  doctrine  cannot  have  brought  about  the  state  of 
England  under  the  Tudors. 

XL  Another,  and  a  very  important  suggestion,  is  the  folio w- 
img :  it  certainly  was  not  the  Catholic  hierarchy,  least  of  all  the 
pontifical  power,  which  produced  it. 

Whatever  may  have  been  written  derogatory  to  the  institu- 
tions existing  in  Europe  during  the  mediaeval  period,  several 
great  facts,  most  favorable  to  the  Catholic  religion,  have  been 
commonly  admitted  by  Protestant  writers,  from  which  we  select 
two.  The  first  of  these  was  originally  stated  by  M.  Guizot,  in 
his  "  Civilization  in  Europe,"  namely,  that  the  kingdom  of 
France  was  created  by  Christian  bishops.  Since  that  first  admis- 
sion, other  non-Catholic  writers  have  gone  further,  and  have  felt 
compelled  to  admit  that,  as  a  general  rule,  the  modern  European 
nations  have  all  been  created,  nurtured,  fostered,  by  Catholic 
bishops,  and  that  the  first  free  Parliaments  of  those  nations 
were,  in  fact,  "  councils  of  the  Church,"  either  of  a  purely  cleri- 
cal character  and  altogether  free  from  the  intermixture  of  lay 
elements,  such  as  the  Councils  of  Toledo,  in  Spain,  or  acting  in 
concert  with  the  representatives  of  the  various  classes  in  the  na- 
tions. 

The  clergy,  as  all  readers  know,  the  clerics,  were  the  first  to 
take  the  lead  in  civil  affairs,  being  more  enlightened  than  the 
other  classes,  and  holding  in  their  body  all  the  education  of  the 
earlier  times.  It  is  unnecessary  to  add  to  this  fact  that,  among 
a  really  Christian  people,  the  voice  of  religion  is  listened  to  be- 
fore all  others.     And  is  it  not  to-dav  a  well-ascertained  fact 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  243 


that,  in  the  main,  the  influence  exerted  by  the  clergy  on  the  for- 
mation of  modern  European  kingdoms  was  in  favor  of  a  well- 
regulated  freedom  based  on  the  first  law — the  law  of  God — that 
primal  source  of  true  liberty  and  civilization  ?  To  the  clergy, 
certainly,  and  to  the  monks,  is  chiefly  due  the  abolition  of  sla- 
very ;  and  the  bishops  took  a  very  active  and  prominent  part  in 
the  movements  of  the  communes,  to  which  the  Third  Estate 
owes  its  birth. 

A  malignant  ingenuity  has  been  displayed  by  many  writers, 
in  ransacking  the  pages  of  history,  in  order  to  fasten  on  certain 
prelates  of  the  Church  charges  of  despotism  and  oppression. 
But,  apart  from  the  fact  that  the  narratives  so  carefully  compiled 
have,  in  many  cases,  turned  out  to  be  perversions  of  the  truth, 
and  granting  even  that  all  these  allegations  are  impartial  and 
true,  the  general  tenor  and  tendency  of  the  history  of  those 
times  is  now  admitted  to  be  ample  refutation  of  such  accusations, 
and  impartial  writers  confess  that  the  ecclesiastical  influence, 
during  those  ages,  was  clearly  set  against  the  oppression  of  the 
people,  and  finally  resulted  in  the  formation  of  those  represent- 
ative and  moderate  governments  which  are  the  boast  of  the 
present  age ;  and  that  the  principles  enunciated  by  the  great 
schoolmen,  led  by  Thomas  Aquinas,  founded  the  order  of  society 
on  justice,  religion,  and  right.  The  more  history  is  studied 
honestly,  investigated  closely,  and  viewed  impartially,  the  more 
plainly  does  the  great  fact  shine  forth  that  the  Catholic  hierarchy, 
in  the  various  European  nations,  constituted  the  vanguard  of 
true  freedom  and  order. 

With  regard  to  the  papal  power,  it  is  a  curious  instance  of 
the  reversal  of  human  judgment,  and  a  very  significant  fact, 
that  those  very  Popes  who,  a  hundred  years  ago,  were  looked 
upon,  even  by  Catholic  writers,  as  the  embodiment  of  super- 
cilious arrogance  and  sacrilegious  presumption,  namely,  Gregory 
VII.,  Innocent  III.,  and  Boniface  YIIL,  are  now  acknowledged 
to  have  been  the  greatest  benefactors  to  Europe  in  their  time, 
and  true  models  of  supreme  Christian  bishops. 

But,  if  these  two  facts  be  admitted,  the  question  recurs,  How 
is  it  that  the  governments  of  several  kingdoms,  and  that  of 
England  in  particular,  had,  during  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries,  merged  into  complete  and  unalloyed  despotism  ?  As 
our  present  interest  in  the  question  is  restricted  to  England,  we 
confine  ourselves  to  that  country,  and  proceed  to  treat  of  it  in  a 
few  words. 

Under  the  Tudors,  the  government  grew  to  be  altogether 
irresponsible,  personal,  and  despotic,  chiefly  because  under  pre- 
vious reigns,  and  constantly  since  the  establishment  of  the  Nor- 
man line  of  kings,  the  authority  of  Rome,  which  formed  the  only 
great  counterpoise  to  kingly  power  at  the  time,  had  been  gradu- 


2U        IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


ally  undermined,  wliile  the  bishops,  being  deprived  of  the  aid  of 
the  supreme  Pontiff,  had  become  mere  tools  in  the  hands  of  the 
monarchs. 

The  particular  shape  which  the  opposition  to  Home  took  in 
England,  compared  with  a  similar  opposition  in  Germany,  has 
been  already  touched  upon  ;  it  was  found  to  be  involved  chiefly 
in  the  question  of  tribute-money  and  benefices,  the  latter  being 
also  reduced  to  a  money  difficulty.  It  was  seen  that  the  monks 
and  the  people  sided  generally  with  the  kings,  and  gradually 
took  a  dislike  and  mistrust  to  every  thing  coming  from  Home  ; 
the  authority  of  the  monarch,  though  not  precisely  strengthened 
thereby,  was  left  without  the  control  of  a  superior  tribunal  to 
direct  him,  and  consequently  the  kings,  if  they  chose,  were  left 
to  follow  the  impulse  of  their  own  caprice,  which,  according  to 
St.  Thomas,  forms  the  characteristic  of  tyranny. 

Other  causes,  doubtless,  contributed  to  pave  the  way  for  and 
consolidate  the  despotism  of  the  Kings  of  England.  Among 
such  causes  may  be  mentioned  the  extraordinary  successes  which 
attended  the  English  arms,  led  by  their  warrior  kings  in  France, 
and  the  frightful  convulsions  subsequently  arising  from  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses  ;  but  we  doubt  not  the  one  mentioned  above  was 
the  chief,  and,  of  itself,  would  in  the  long-run  have  brought 
about  the  same  result. 

Protestantism,  therefore,  was  neither  the  growth  of  freedom 
in  England,  nor  did  it  plant  freedom  there  at  its  introduction, 
inasmuch  as  the  royal  power  became  more  absolute  than  ever  by 
its  predominance,  and  by  the  first  principle  which  it  laid  down, 
that  the  king  was  supreme  in  Church  as  well  as  in  state.  Can 
its  origin  in  England,  then,  be  accounted  for  by  the  existence  of 
a  higher  civilization,  anterior  to  it  in  point  of  time,  out  of  which 
it  grew,  or,  at  least,  by  a  true  aspiration  toward  such. 

This  question  is  as  easy  of  solution  as  the  first :  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  nations  which  remained  either  entirely  or 
in  the  main  faithful  to  the  Church,  in  point  of  learning  and 
civilization,  ranked  far  beyond  the  Northern  nations,  where  her- 
esy so  early  found  a  permanent  footing,  and  that  in  the  South  also 
the  tendencies  toward  a  higher  civilization  were  at  that  time  of 
a  most  marked  and  extraordinary  character,  so  much  so  that  the 
reign  of  Leo  X.  has  become  a  household  phrase  to  express  the 
perfection  of  culture. 

England,  as  a  nation,  was  at  that  period  only  just  beginning 
to  emerge  from  barbarism,  and  in  fact  was  the  last  of  the 
European  nations  to  adopt  civilized  customs  and  manners  in  the 
political,  civil,  and  social  relations  of  life. 

In  politics  she  was,  until  that  epoch,  plunged  in  frightful 
dynastic  revolutions,  and  as  yet  had  not  learned  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  good  government.    In  civil  affairs,  her  code  was  the 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  245 


most  barbarous,  her  feudal  customs  the  most  revolting,  her  whole 
history  the  most  appalling  of  all  Christendom.  In  social  habits, 
she  had  scarcely  been  able  to  retain  a  few  precious  fragments  of 
good  old  Catholic  times ;  and  the  fearful  scenes  through  which 
the  nation  had  passed,  which,  according  to  J.  J.  Rousseau,  for 
once  expressing  the  truth,  render  the  reading  of  that  period  of 
her  history  almost  impossible  to  a  humane  man,  had  sunk  her 
almost  completely  in  degradation.  The  reader  will  understand 
that  the  England  here  spoken  of  is  the  England  of  three  centuries 
ago.  and  not  of  to-day. 

If  by  civilization  is  understood  learning  and  the  fine  arts, 
what,  in  general  phrase,  is  expressed  by  culture  and  refinement, 
how  could  England  compare  at  the  time  with  Italy,  Flanders, 
Spain,  France,  all  Latin  or  Celtic  nations  1  How  can  it  be  pre- 
tended that  she  was  better  fitted  for  the  reception  of  a  more  spirit- 
ual and  elevating  religion  than  any  of  the  countries  mentioned  ? 

Two  great  names  may  be  brought  forward  as  proving  that 
the  expressions  used  are  harsh  and  ill-founded — Shakespeare 
and  Milton  ;  a  third,  Bacon,  we  omit  for  reasons  which  our  space 
forbids  us  to  give. 

Shakespeare,  whose  name  may  rank  with  those  of  Homer  and 
Dante,  was  not  a  product  of  those  times.  He  was  a  gift  of 
Heaven.  At  any  other  epoch  he  would  have  been  as  great,  per- 
haps greater.  What  he  received  from  his  surroundings  and  from 
the  "  civilization  "  with  which  he  was  blessed,  he  has  handed 
down  to  us  in  the  uncouth  form,  the  intricacy  of  plot  and 
adventures,  which  would  have  rendered  barbarous  a  poet  less . 
naturally  gifted.  And,  although  the  question  has  never  been 
definitely  settled,  it  is  probable  that  he  was  born  and  lived  a 
Catholic ;  and  it  is  strange  how  Elizabeth,  who,  tradition  tells 
us,  was  present  at  some  of  his  plays,  could  endure  his  faithful 
portrayal  of  friars  and  nuns,  while  she  was  persecuting  their 
originals  so  barbarously  at  the  time  ;  strangest  of  all,  how  she 
could  bear  to  look  upon  the  true  and  noble  image  of  Katherine 
of  Aragon,  whom  Henry  in  his  good  moment  pronounces  "  the 
queen  of  earthly  queens,"  contrasted  with  her  own  mother,  to 
whom  the  shrewd  old  court  lady  tells  the  story  : 

"  There  was  a  lady  once  ('tis  an  old  story), 
That  would  not  be  a  queen,  that  would  she  not, 
For  all  the  mud  in  Egypt : — Have  you  heard  it  ? " 

Thus  did  Shakespeare  contrast  Elizabeth's  wanton  mother 
with  the  noble  woman  whom  Henry  discarded  for  a  toy.  And 
Borne  critics  can  only  find  a  reason  for  the  composition  of  the 
"  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  "  and  the  "  Sonnets  "  as  an  offering 
to  the  lewd  queen.    Nothing  more  did  he  owe  to  his  time. 


246        IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


And  Milton,  who,  thongh  his  father  was  a  Catholic,  was  him- 
self a  rank  Puritan,  something  of  what  we  have  said  of  Shake- 
speare may  be  said  of  him.  At  all  events,  all  his  cultivation  and 
taste  came  from  Italy.  The  poets  of  that  really  civilized  country 
had  polished  his  uncouth  nature,  as  it  were  in  spite  of  itself,  and 
added  to  the  depth  of  his  wonderful  genius  the  beauty  and 
soft  harmony  of  verse  that  ever  flowed  freely,  and  the  strength 
of  a  nervous  and  sonorous  prose. 

Now  comes  the  question  :  If  the  origin  of  Protestantism  in 
England  cannot  be  attributed  to  freedom  and  civilization,  may  it 
not,  at  least,  be  maintained  that  the  natural  result  of  Protestant- 
ism was  the  acquisition  of  true  freedom  and  of  a  higher  civiliza- 
tion 1  Is  it  not  true  that  to-day  Protestant  nations  are  in  ad- 
vance of  others  in  both  these  respects?  And  to  what  other 
cause  can  such  advancement  be  ascribed  than  to  the  "reformed 
religion  ?  v  Is  it  not  the  freedom  which  has  come  to  the  human 
mind,  after  the  rejection  of  the  yoke  of  spiritual  authority,  and 
the  proclamation  of  the  rights  of  individual  reason,  that  has 
brought  about  the  present  advanced  state  of  affairs  ? 

We  know  all  these  fine-sounding  phrases  which  are  so  con- 
tinuously dinned  into  our  ears,  and  republished  day  after  day  in 
a  thousand  forms.  The  question,  we  admit,  is  not  so  easy  of 
solution  as  the  first,  and  might,  indeed,  without  suspicion  of 
evasion,  be  discarded  as  not  coming  under  the  head  of  this  chap- 
ter, which  spoke  of  origin  and  not  of  consequences.  Neverthe- 
less, a  few  words  may  be  devoted  to  the  subject,  to  prove  that 
the  answer  must  still  be  in  the  negative. 

The  first  result  of  Protestantism  was  undoubtedlv  to  extin- 
guish  as  completely  as  possible  the  remaining  sparks  of  truly 
liberal  thought  promulgated  in  Europe  by  the  Catholic  doctors 
of  the  middle  ages.  "Wherever  the  new  doctrines  spread,  secular 
rulers  were  not  only  freed  from  pontifical  control,  but  were 
themselves  invested  with  supreme  ecclesiastical  power.  The 
effective  check  which  the  paternal  and  bold  voice  issuing  from 
the  Vatican  had  exercised  on  kings  and  princes  was  in  a  mo- 
ment taken  away.  In  Germany,  England,  and  Scandinavia,  the 
kings  and  petty  princes,  and  dukes  even,  became  each  so  many 
popes  in  their  own  dominions.  And  this  took  place  with  the 
consent  and  frequently  at  the  earnest  request  of  the  Reformers. 

Even  the  European  states  which  did  not  fall  away  from  the 
old  faith  of  Christendom  took  advantage,  it  might  almost  be 
6aid,  of  the  difficult  position  in  which  the  Holy  Father  found 
himself,  to  countenance  new  doctrines  with  respect  to  the  limits 
of  the  authority  of  the  Supreme  Pontiff;  and  the  new  errors 
which  so  suddenly  appeared  in  France  and  elsewhere,  during  the 
prevalence  and  at  the  extinction  of  the  great  schism,  limiting  the 
power  of  the  Popes  in  many  matters  where  it  had  been  consid- 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  247 


ered  binding,  broke  out  again,  in  France  principally,  under  the 
lead  of  Protestant  or  Erastian  parliamentarians  and  legists,  under 
the  name  of  Gallican  liberties — pretended  liberties,  which  would 
really  make  the  Church  a  subordinate  adjunct  of  the  State,  in- 
stead of  what  it  is,  a  spiritual  living  body  ruled  exclusively  by  a 
spiritual  head. 

How  could  the  cause  of  true  liberty  in  Europe  be  promoted 
by  such  altered  circumstances  as  these  ? — to  say  nothing  of  the 
disastrous  imprudence  with  which  those  blind  rulers  and  so- 
called  theologians  took  away  the  key -stone  of  the  European 
social  edifice,  which  grew  weaker  from  that  day  forth,  until  now 
we  see  it  tottering  to  its  fall. 

The  introduction  of  Protestantism,  then,  was  one  of  the 
chief  causes  of  the  change  by  which  a  much  greater  personal 
power  was  transferred  to  the  hands  of  the  sovereign  than  he  had 
ever  before  held,  and  it  is  no  surprise  to  see  the  absolutism  of 
emperors  and  kings,  in  Christian  Europe,  date  from  its  coming. 

As  time  passed  on,  the  cause  acting  on  a  larger  scale,  em- 
bracing a  wider  circumference,  and  drawing  within  its  circle 
vaster  territories,  the  world  saw  absolute  rule  established  in 
England,  France,  Spain,  and  Germany.  Previous  to  the  six- 
teenth centurv,  the  word  "  absolutism  "  was  unknown  in  Chris- 
tendom,  as  was  the  doctrine  of  the  "  divine  right  of  kings " 
understood  and  preached  as  it  has  since  been  in  England. 

But,  to  furnish  details  which  should  render  these  reflections 
more  striking,  would  require  an  unravelling  of  the  whole  tangled 
skein  of  history  during  those  times. 

Nevertheless,  we  must  come  to  consider  the  last  refuge  of 
Protestant  liberalism.  Did  not  the  Reformation  really  eman- 
cipate modern  nations,  and  gradually  bring  about  the  whole 
system  of  representative  governments,  which,  starting  from  Eng- 
land, have  now,  in  fact,  become,  more  or  less,  general  through- 
out Europe  % 

Our  answer  is,  Yes  and  No.  It  may  be  granted  that  Prot- 
estantism did  give  rise  to  a  certain  kind  of  liberalism  very 
prevalent  in  our  days ;  but  such  liberalism  is  very  far  from 
bestowing  on  nations  true  liberty  and  stability  ;  hence  their 
constant  agitation,  and  the  perils  of  society  which  threaten  all, 
even  the  specially  favored  Protestant  nations  themselves  as  much 
as  any. 

It  was  indeed  the  new  doctrines  which  brought  about  the 
(f  Commonwealth  "  in  England,  and  the  subsequent  Revolution 
of  1688  ;  between  which  two  events,  however,  great  differences 
exist. 

The  destruction  of  monarchy  under  and  in  the  person  of 
Charles  L  was  the  just  retribution  dealt  by  Providence  to  the 
English  kings,  who  had  been  the  first  openly  to  shake  off  from  a 


248        IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


great  nation  the  wise  and  beneficent  yoke  of  Rome.  At  all 
events,  one  thing  is  certain,  that  under  the  "  Protector,"  the 
child  of  the  Revolution,  as  little  as  under  the  Protestant  Tudors, 
could  the  English  scarcely  be  regarded  as  freemen. 

Cromwell  banished  from  their  hall  the  representatives  of 
the  people.  He  could  scarcely  find  epithets  opprobrious  enough 
for  Magna  Charta,  which  the  people  considered,  and  rightly,  as 
the  palladium  of  English  liberty.  In  his  scornful  order  to 
"  take  away  that  bawble,"  though  the  "  bawble  "  immediately 
referred  to  was  the  Speaker's  mace,  the  word  meant  the  freedom 
of  the  nation.  He  was  as  absolute  a  monarch  as  ever  ruled 
England.  The  liberty  enjoyed  under  his  regime  was  as  mean- 
ingless for  every  class  as  for  the  Catholics,  whom  he  more  im- 
mediately oppressed,  and  was  ill  compensated  for  by  the  material 
prosperity  which  his  genius  knew  so  well  how  to  secure. 

It  was  his  despotic  rule,  in  fact,  and  the  fear  of  anarchy 
which  affrighted  the  minds  of  the  people  at  his  death — the  dread 
of  a  government  of  rival  soldiers — which  rendered  so  easy  the 
triumphant  restoration  of  the  worthless  Stuarts,  in  the  person  of 
the  most  worthless  of  them  all,  Charles  II. 

The  true  constitutional  liberty  of  which  England  may  fairly 
boast  was  the  work  of  a  long  series  of  years  subsequent  to  the 
Revolution  of  1688.  It  was  the  work  of  the  whole  eighteenth 
century,  in  fact,  and  was  grounded  on  the  fragments  of  old 
Catholic  doctrines  and  customs.  In  no  sense  can  it  be  called  the 
result  of  Protestantism,  save  as  coming  after  it  in  point  of  time. 

Whoever  is  acquainted  with  the  state  of  religion  and  society 
in  England,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  and  the 
whole  of  the  eighteenth  century,  needs  not  to  be  told  that, 
among  the  ruling  classes,  faith  in  a  revealed  religion  had  ceased 
to  exist.  The  yoke  of  Rome  once  shaken  off,  the  human  mind 
was  quick  to  draw  all  the  consequences  of  the  principle  of  entire 
independence  in  religious  matters.  Tindal,  Collins,  Hobbes, 
Shaftesbury,  and  other  philosophers,  had  openly  denounced  reve- 
lation, and  that  portion  of  the  nation  which  esteemed  itself 
enlightened  embraced  their  new  doctrines.  It  would  be  false  to 
imagine  that,  in  1700  and  afterward,  the  English  were  as  firm 
believers  in  the  Church  of  England's  Thirty-nine  Articles  as 
they  seemed  to  be  at  the  beginning  of  this  century.  The  whole 
of  the  last  century  was  for  all  Europe,  with  the  exception  of  the 
two  peninsulas  of  Italy  and  Spain,  a  period  of  avowed  disbelief. 

Even  Presbyterian  Scotland  did  not  escape  the  contagion, 
and  some  theologians  and  preachers  of  the  Kirk  at  that  time  are 
now  praised  for  their  liberal  views  of  religion,  that  is,  for  their 
want  of  real  faith.  The  influence  of  Wesley  and  his  fellow- 
workers  on  the  English  mind,  and  the  dread  of  the  spread  of 
French  infidelity  and  jacobinism,  were  more  extensive  and 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  249 


effectual  than  people  are  apt  to  imagine  ;  and  there  is  no  doubt 
that,  seventy  years  ago,  England  was  far  more  of  a  believing 
country  than  she  had  been  for  a  hundred  years  before. 

But,  if  even  Scotch  Presbyterian  ministers  and  Church  of 
England  men,  such  as  Laurence  Sterne,  were  unworthy  of  the 
name  of  Christian,  what  are  we  to  think  of  those  who  had  to 
profess  no  outward  faith  in  Christianity,  because  of  ministerial 
offices  ?  There  is  no  doubt  that,  in  the  mass,  they  were  almost 
completely  void  of  any  faith  in  revealed  religion. 

To  such  men  as  these  is  England  indebted  for  the  develop- 
ment of  her  constitution.  If  Protestantism  had  any  share  in  it 
at  all,  it  did  not  go  beyond  preparing  the  way  for  the  destruction 
of  Christianity  in  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  people  ;  or,  rather, 
constitutional  liberty  in  England  has  no  connection  whatever 
with  religion.  The  English,  left  to  their  own  ingenuity  and 
skill,  displayed  a  vast  amount  of  statesmanlike  qualities  in  devis- 
ing for  themselves  a  system  of  check  and  counter-check,  which 
protected  the  subject  and  defined  the  rights  of  the  ruler ;  and 
this  gave  the  nation  an  undoubted  superiority  over  their  neigh- 
bors on  the  Continent.  But  it  cannot  be  attributed,  except  in  a 
very  remote  manner,  to  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  human  mind. 

Were  we  to  examine  the  effect  which  the  example  of  Eng- 
land produced  on  other  nations,  we  should  find  that,  instead  of 
spreading  liberty,  it  was  the  cause  of  the  diffusion  of  an  unbri- 
dled license  under  the  name  of  liberalism. 

In  England  itself,  the  lower  orders  of  society  having  been 
kept  in  ignorance,  and  consequently  in  subjection  to  the  ruling 
classes,  and  the  latter  finding  it  to  their  interest  to  preserve 
order  and  stability  in  the  state,  no  frightful  commotions  could 
ensue  to  threaten  the  destruction  of  society. 

In  Continental  countries,  the  middle  and  even  the  lowest 
classes  were  more  readily  caught  by  doctrines  which,  when  kept 
within  due  bounds,  may  be  promotive  of  exterior  prosperity,  but 
which,  pushed  to  their  extremes  and  logical  consequences,  may 
embroil  the  whole  nation  in  revolution  and  calamities. 

Such  has  been  the  case  in  our  own  days,  and  in  days  imme- 
diately preceding  our  own  ;  and  England  is  now  experiencing 
the  recoil  of  those  convulsions,  and  seems  on  the  eve  of  being 
convulsed  herself  more  terribly,  perhaps,  than  any  other  nation 
has  yet  been. 

These  few  reflections  must  suffice,  as  to  extend  them  would 

fo  beyond  our  present  scope.    But  now  comes  the  question, 
Hry  was  Ireland  unprepared  for  the  reception  of  Protestantism  ? 
why  did  she  reject  it  absolutely  and  permanently  ? 

According  to  the  theorists  who  attribute  the  success  of  Prot- 
estantism in  the  North  of  Europe  to  a  higher  civilization  and  a 


250       IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


more  ardent  love  of  freedom,  the  contrary  characteristics  should 
distinguish  those  nations  which  remained  faithful  to  the  Church, 
and  particularly  the  Irish.  Was  the  lack  of  a  higher  civilization 
and  more  ardent  love  for  freedom  really  the  cause,  then,  for  Ire- 
land's undergoing  so  many  fearful  sacrifices  merely  for  the  sake 
of  her  religion  ? 

We  should  not  dread  entering  upon  a  comparison  of  the 
Scandinavian  and  Celtic  races  in  these  two  particular  points,  as 
they  existed,  at  the  time  of  the  Tudors.  We  are  confident  that 
a  detailed  survey  of  both  would  result  in  a  glorious  vindication 
of  the  Irish  character,  although,  owing  to  six  hundred  years  of 
cruel  wars  with  Dane  and  Anglo-Xorman,  the  actual  prosperity 
of  the  country  was  far  inferior  to  that  of  England.  But  the  out- 
line  of  so  vast  a  subject  must  content  us  here. 

In  judging  of  the  elevation  of  a  nation's  sentiments,  the  first 
thing  that  strikes  us  is  the  motive  assigned  by  the  Irish  repre- 
sentatives for  refusing  to  pass  the  bill  of  supremacy.  "  Five  or 
six  changes  of  religion  in  twelve  vears  were  too  much  for  consci- 
eutious  people."  Such  was  the  answer  sent  back  to  Elizabeth, 
and  spoken  as  though  easy  of  comprehension.  Had  they  deemed 
that  their  language  could  have  been  misunderstood,  they  would 
undoubtedly  have  expressed  themselves  in  stronger  terms. 

Strange  that  such  an  obvious  and  common-sense  remark  had 
never  occurred  to  the  intelligent  and  highlv-civilized  members  of 
the  English  Parliament — those  ardent  lovers  of  freedom — when 
applied  to  by  a  new  English  monarch  to  acknowledge  and  confirm, 
as  law,  the  religious  system  he  had  determined  to  establish ! 

Apparently,  then,  at  this  time,  Ireland  possessed  a  conscience 
which  England  either  laid  no  claim  on,  or  made  no  pretensions  to ; 
and  it  might  not  be  too  much  to  lay  this  down  as  the  first  reason 
why  Ireland  remained  faithful  to  her  religion.  In  fact,  the  whole 
history  of  the  period  bears  out  this  general  observation.  The 
subserviency  of  the  proud  English  aristocracy,  of  those  pretended 
statesmen  and  legislators,  in  matters  so  intimatelv  connected 
with  the  soul,  its  convictions  and  its  morality,  shows  conclu- 
sively that  the  word  "  conscience  "  had  no  meaning  for  them,  or 
that,  if  they  were  aware  of  the  existence  of  such  a  thing,  they 
made  so  little  account  of  it  that  they  were  ready  at  all  times  to 
barter  it  for  position,  what  they  considered  honor,  and  wealth. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  constant,  unshaken,  and  emphatic  re- 
fusal of  the  Irish  to  renounce  their  religion  for  the  novel  "  specu- 
lations '  of  pretended  theologians — in  reality,  heretical  teachers 
— at  the  beck  of  king  or  queen  ;  their  willingness  to  submit  to  all 
the  rigor  of  extreme  penal  laws  rather  than  disobey  their  sense 
of  right,  proves  too  well  that  they  possessed  a  conscience,  knew 
what  it  meant  and  resolved  to  follow  it.  There  is  not  a  single 
fact  of  their  history,  general  or  particular,  taking  them  collec- 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  251 


lively  as  a  nation,  when,  by  their  actions,  they  spoke  as  one  peo- 
ple or  individually,  when  priest  and  friar,  great  man  or  mean 
man,  chose  to  lose  position,  property,  name — life  itself — rather 
than  be  false  to  their  religion  and  God — which  does  not  prove 
that  they  owned  a  conscience  and  obeyed  its  voice. 

Can  a  nation,  deprived  of  this,  be  esteemed  really  free  and 
truly  civilized  ?  and  can  a  nation  which  possesses  it  be  consid- 
ered barbarous  ?  The  answer  cannot  be  doubtful,  and  is  of 
itself  a  sufficient  solution  of  the  question  under  examination. 

But,  to  come  to  more  special  details.  The  Irish  idea  of  civ- 
ilization was  certainly  of  a  very  different  character  from  that  of 
the  English  ;  but  was  it  the  less  true  ?  From  the  landing  of  the 
first  invasion,  the  Norman  nobles  and  prelates  looked  down  on 
the  invaded  people  as  barbarous  and  uncouth,  as  they  previously 
looked  down  upon  the  Anglo-Saxons.  Later  on,  they  spoke  of 
the  Irish  customs  as  "  lewd  ; "  and,  later  still,  the  majority  of 
them  adopted  those  "  lewd  customs." 

If  the  question  be  merely  one  of  refinement  of  outward  man- 
ners, and  acquaintance  with  the  artificial  code  established  by  a 
society  with  which  the  Irish,  up  to  that  time,  had  never  come  in 
contact,  the  Normans  may  be  granted  whatever  benefit  may  ac- 
crue to  them  from  such,  though,  even  here,  the  Irish  chieftains 
might  later  on  compare  favorably  with  their  foes.  For  instance, 
it  is  doubtful  whether  Hugh  O'Donnell  and  O'Sullivan  Beare, 
one  of  whom  went  to  Spain,  and  the  other  to  Portugal — and  the 
second,  Philip  II.  commanded  to  be  treated  as  a  Spanish  grandee 
— were  not  as  courteous  and  dignified  as  Cecil  or  Walsingham, ' 
or  Essex  or  Raleigh,  at  the  court  of  Elizabeth.  And,  if  we  take 
the  case  of  the  descendants  of  Strongbow's  warriors,  who  became 
"  more  Irish  than  the  Irish,"  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  prefer  the  manners  and  bearing  of  young  Gerald  Desmond, 
when,  after  leaving  Home,  he  appeared  at  the  court  of  Tuscany, 
to  those  of  the  young  lords  who  danced  at  Windsor,  under  the 
eyes  of  Henry,  with  Anne  Boleyn.  But,  treating  the  subject 
seriously,  and  examining  it  more  closely,  we  may  find  a  necessity 
for  reversing  the  opinion  which  is  too  commonly  entertained. 

Civilization  does  not  consist  only,  or  chiefly,  in  refinement  of 
manners,  but  in  all  things  which  exalt  a  nation ;  and,  after  the 
"  conscience  "  of  which  we  have  spoken,  nothing  is  so  important 
in  making  a  nation  civilized  as  the  institutions  under  which  it 
lives. 

The  laws  are  the  great  index  of  a  people's  civilization,  chiefly 
as  regards  their  execution.  Nothing  can  be  more  indicative  of  it 
than  the  criminal  code  of  a  people. 

The  law  of  England  at  that  time  compares  poorly  with  the 
Irish  compilation  known  as  the  "  Senchus  Mor,"  which  scholars 
have  only  recently  been  able  to  study,  and  which  is  being  printed 


252 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


as  we  write,  and  to  be  illustrated  with  learned  notes.  From  all 
accounts  given  by  competent  reviewers,  it  is  clear  that  wisdom, 
sound  judgment,  equity,  and  Christian  feeling,  constitute  the 
essence  of  those  laws  which  Edmund  Campian  found  the  young 
Irishmen  of  his  day  studying  under  such  strange  circumstances 
and  with  such  ardor  and  application  as  to  spend  sixteen  or  eigh- 
teen years  at  it. 

And  in  what  manner  were  those  very  Christian  enactments 
which  lay  at  the  foundation  of  the  English  legislation  executed 
at  the  same  period  %  What,  for  instance,  were  the  features  of  its 
criminal  code  %  It  is  unnecessary  to  depict  what  all  the  world 
knows. 

In  extenuation  of  the  barbarous  blood-thirstiness  which  char- 
acterized it,  it  may  be  said  that  torture,  cruel  punishments,  and 
fearful  chastisement  for  slight  offences,  formed  the  general  feat- 
ures of  the  criminal  code  of  most  Christian  nations.  They  had 
been  handed  down  by  barbarous  ancestors,  the  relics  of  Scandi- 
navian cruelty  for  the  most  part,  added  to  the  Roman  slave  pen- 
alties, which  were  the  remnants  of  pagan  inhumanity.  This  an- 
swer would  be  insufficient  when  comparing  the  English  with  the 
Brehon  law,  but  it  does  not  hold  good  even  with  reference  to 
other  Continental  nations.  In  no  country  at  that  time  was  pun- 
ishment so  pitiless  as  in  England.  The  details,  now  well  known, 
can  only  be  published  for  exceptional  readers ;  to  find  a  compari- 
son for  them  Dr.  Madden  says : 

"  We  must  come  down  to  the  reign  of  terror  in  France,  to 
the  massacres  of  September,  to  the  wholesale  executions  of  con- 
ventional times  ;  to  find  the  mob  insulting  the  victims,  and  the 
executioner  himself  adding  personal  affront  to  the  disgusting  ful- 
filment of  his  horrible  office." 

Passing  from  the  laws  to  the  usages  of  warfare,  and  chiefly  to 
domestic  strife,  here  the  most  vulnerable  point  in  the  Irish  char- 
acter shows  itself.  The  constant  feuds  resulting  from  the  clan 
system  furnish  a  never-failing  theme  to  those  who  accuse  the 
Irish  of  barbarism.  Yet  is  there  no  parallel  to  them  in  the  hor- 
rors of  those  dynastic  revolutions  which  preceded  the  Tudors  in 
England,  and  which  the  Tudors  only  put  an  end  to  by  the  com- 
pletest  despotism,  and  by  shedding  the  best  blood  of  the  country 
in  torrents  ?  The  Irish  feuds  never  depopulated  the  country.  It 
is  even  admitted  by  most  reliable  historians  that,  while  those  dis- 
sensions were  rifest,  the  land  was  really  teeming  with  a  happy 
people,  and  rich  in  every  thing  which  an  agricultural  country  can 
enjoy.  The  great  battles  of  the  various  clans  resulted  often  in  the 
killing  of  a  few  dozen  warriors.  Such,  in  fact,  was  the  manner  in 
which  chroniclers  estimated  the  gains  or  losses  of  each  of  those 
victories  or  defeats. 

But,  in  the  Wars  of  the  Eoses,  England  lost  a  great  part  of  her 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  253 


adult  population ;  so  much  so,  that  she  was  altogether  incapaci- 
tated from  waging  war  with  any  external  nation.  She  could  not 
even  afford  to  send  any  reinforcements  to  the  English  Pale  in 
Ireland — not  even  a  few  hundred  which  at  times  would  have 

E roved  so  serviceable.    It  was  in  fact  high  time  and  almost  a 
appy  thing  for  England  that  the  crushing  despotism  of  the  Tu- 
dors  came  in  to  save  the  nation  from  total  ruin. 

Finally,  can  it  be  said  that  the  Irish  were  inferior  in  civiliza- 
tion to  the  English  by  reason  of  their  social  habits,  when  Danes, 
Anglo-Saxons  and  Normans,  in  turn,  invariably  adopted  Irish 
manners  in  preference  to  their  own,  after  living  a  sufficient  time 
in  the  country  to  be  able  to  appreciate  the  difference  between 
the  one  and  the  other  ? 

The  writers  of  whom  we  speak  ascribe  the  spread  of  Protes- 
tantism not  only  to  a  higher  civilization,  or  at  least  a  special  apt- 
ness and  fitness  for  it,  but  also  say  that  it  was  due  to  the  greater 
love  for  freedom  which  possessed  those  who  accepted  it ;  where- 
as the  Irish,  as  they  allege,  have  been  forever  priest-ridden  and 
cowered  under  the  lash. 

The  connection  between  English  Protestantism  and  freedom 
has  been  sufficiently  touched  upon.  But  in  Ireland  the  whole 
resistance  of  the  Irish  people  to  the  change  of  religion  is  the 
most  conspicuous  proof  which  could  be  advanced  of  their  inher- 
ent love  for  freedom. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  word  "priest-ridden  ? "  If,  as  at- 
tached to  the  Irish,  it  means  that  they  have  remained  faithfully  de- 
voted to  their  spiritual  guides,  and  protected  them  at  cost  of  life 
and  limb  against  the  execution  of  barbarous  laws,  this  epithet  which 
is  flung  at  them  as  a  reproach  is  a  glory  to  them,  and  a  true  one. 

Are  they  to  be  accused  of  cowardice  because  they  were  never 
bold  enough  to  demolish  a  single  Catholic  chapel — a  favorite 
amusement  of  the  English  mobs  from  Elizabeth's  reign  to  Vic- 
toria's— or  because  they  could  not  find  the  courage  in  their  hearts 
to  mock  a  martyr  at  the  stake,  or  imbrue  their  hands  in  his  blood, 
as  did  the  nation  of  a  higher  civilization  and  a  more  ardent  love 
for  freedom  ? 

The  Irish  cower  under  the  lash !  It  could  never  be  applied, 
until  calculating  treachery  had  first  rendered  them  naked  and 
defenceless,  and  removed  from  their  reach  every  weapon  of  de- 
fence. And  the  man  who  in  such  a  case  receives  the  lash  is  a 
coward,  while  he  who  safely  applies  it  is  a  hero  ! 

Our  observations  so  far  have  cleared  the  ground  for  the  right 
solution  and  understanding  of  the  present  question.  It  may  now 
be  said  that  the  Irish  were  not  prepared  for  the  reception  of  Prot- 
estantism, and  remained  firm  in  their  faith  because — 

1.  They  possessed  a  conscience. 

2.  There  had  existed  no  religious  abuses,  worthy  of  the  name, 


254        IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


in  their  country  which  called  for  reform.  Such  abuses  had  in 
England  and  Germany  furnished  the  pretext  for  a  change  of 
religion.  It  was  a  mere  pretext,  for  the  alleged  abuses  might  all 
be  remedied  without  intrenching  on  the  domain  of  faith,  and  un- 
settling the  religious  convictions  of  the  whole  nation.  There  is 
no  greater  crime  possible  than  to  introduce  among  people  enjoy- 
ing all  the  benefits  resulting  from  a  firm  belief  in  holy  truth  a 
simple  doubt,  a  simple  hesitating  surmise,  calculated  to  make 
them  waver  in  the  least  in  what  had  previously  been  a  solid  and 
well-grounded  faith.  But  to  consider  that  crime  carried  to  the 
extent  of  so  sapping  the  foundation  of  Christian  belief  as  to  bring 
about  the  inevitable  consequence  of  opening  under  nations  the 
fearful  abyss  of  atheism  and  despair — there  is  no  word  sufficient- 
ly strong  to  express  the  indignation  which  such  a  course  of  action 
must  naturally  excite.  And  that  the  ultimate  result  of  the  new 
heresv  was  to  carry  men  to  the  verv  brink  of  the  abvss  is  plain 
enough  to-dav,  and  was  foreseen  bv  Luther  himself.  In  all 
probability  he  had  a  clear  perception  of  it,  since  the  latter  half  of 
Lis  life  was  devoted  to  propping  up  the  crumbling  walls  of  his 
hastily-erected  edifice  by  whatever  supports  he  could  steal  from 
the  old  faith,  and  fighting  hard  against  all  those  who  had  already 
drawn  the  ultimate  conclusions  ol  his  own  principles. 

For  those,  then,  who  in  the  sixteenth  century  set  in  motion 
the  chaos  which  threatens  to  overwhelm  us  to-day,  the  religious 
abuses  existing  at  the  time  can  oner  no  excuse  for  their  destruc- 
tion of  Religion,  because  stains  happened  to  sully  the  purity  of 
her  outward  garment. 

But  in  Ireland  no  such  abuses  existed;  and  consequently 
there  was  there  not  even  a  pretext  for  the  introduction  of  Prot- 
estantism, and  by  the  very  reason  of  their  sense  of  good  and 
right  the  Irish  were  unprepared  for  heresy. 

3.  Even  had  it  entered  into  their  minds  to  wish  for  a  reforma- 
tion of  some  kind,  they  were  certainly  unprepared  for  the  one 
offered  them.  The  first  reform  of  the  new  order  was  to  close 
the  religious  houses  which  the  people  loved,  which  were  the  seats 
of  learning,  holiness,  and  education.  Their  Catholic  ancestors 
had  founded  those  religious  houses ;  they  themselves  enjoyed  the 
spiritual  and  even  temporal  advantages  attached  to  them,  for  they 
constituted  in  fact  the  only  important  and  useful  establishments 
which  their  country  possessed ;  they  had  been  consecrated  by  the 
lives  and  deaths  of  a  thousand  saints  within  their  walls  ;  and  they 
suddenly  beheld  pretended  ministers  of  a  new  religion  of  which 
they  knew  nothing,  backed  by  ferocious  Walloon  or  English 
troopers,  turn  out  or  slay  their  inmates,  close  them,  set  them  on 
fire,  pillage  them,  or  convert  them  into  private  dwellings  for  the 
convenience  of  an  imported  aristocracy.  This  was  the  first  act 
of  the  "  introduction  "  of  the  "  Reformation  "  into  Ireland.  The 


IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM.  255 


people  were  enabled  to  judge  of  the  sanctity  of  the  new  creed  at 
its  first  appearance  among  them.  And  this  alone,  apart  from 
their  firm  adherence  to  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  was  quite 
enough  to  justify  them  in  their  resistance  to  such  a  substitute. 

But,  above  all,  when  they  beheld  how  the  inmates  of  those 
holy  houses  were  treated,  when  they  saw  them  cast  out  into  the 
world,  penniless,  reduced  to  penury  and  want,  persecuted,  de- 
clared outcasts,  hunted  down,  insulted  by  the  soldiery,  arrested, 
cruelly  beaten,  bound  hand  and  foot,  and  hung  up  either  before 
the  door  of  their  burning  monastery,  or  even  in  the  church  itself 
before  the  altar — what  wonder  that  they  were  unprepared  to  re- 
ceive the  new  religion  ? 

The  barbarity  displayed  throughout  England  and  Ireland 
toward  Catholicism  was  specially  fiendish  when  directed  against 
religious  of  both  sexes ;  and,  as  in  Ireland  no  class  of  persons  was 
more  justly  and  dearly  loved,  what  wonder  that  the  Irish  literally 
hated  the  religion  that  came  to  them  from  beyond  the  sea  ? 

Without  going  over  the  other  aspects  of  the  religious  ques- 
tion of  the  time,  and  comparing  article  with  article  of  the  new 
and  old  beliefs,  this  single  feature  of  the  case  alone  is  sufficient. 
The  process  might  be  carried  out  with  advantage,  but  is  not 
necessary. 

4.  The  new  order  of  things,  in  one  word,  resolved  itself  into 
rapacity  and  wanton  bloodshed.  And,  despite  whatever  may  be 
said  of  Irish  outrages  by  those  who  are  never  tired  of  alluding  to 
them,  Irish  nature  is  opposed  to  such  excesses.  If  they  are  ever 
guilty  of  such,  it  is  only  when  they  have  previously  been  out- 
raged themselves,  and  in  such  cases  they  are  the  first  to  repent 
of  their  action  in  their  cooler  moments.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
men  who  first  set  all  these  outrages  going  never  find  reason  to 
accuse  themselves  of  any  thing,  are  even  perfectly  satisfied  with 
and  convinced  of  their  own  perfection ;  and,  as  from  the  first  they 
acted  coolly  and  systematically,  their  self-equanimity  is  never  dis- 
turbed, they  continue  unshaken  in  the  calm  conviction  that  they 
have  always  been  in  the  right,  whatever  may  have  been  the  con- 
sequences of  the  initiative  movement  and  its  steady  continuance. 

But  we  repeat  advisedly — the  Irish  nature  is  opposed  to  ra- 
pacity and  wanton  shedding  of  blood,  and  this  formed  another 
strong  reason  for  their  opposition  to  the  religious  revolution 
which  immersed  them  in  so  bloody  a  baptism. 

5.  Yet  perhaps  the  most  radical  and  real  cause  of  their  per- 
sistent refusal  to  embrace  Protestantism  lies  in  their  traditional 
spirit,  of  which  we  have  previously  spoken.  There  is  no  ration- 
alistic tendency  in  their  character. 

And  all  the  points  well  considered,  which,  after  all,  is  the 
better,  the  simply  traditional  or  strictly  rationalistic  nature  ? 
What  has  been  the  result  of  those  philosophical  speculations  from 


256       IRELAND  UNPREPARED  FOR  PROTESTANTISM. 


which  Protestantism  sprang?  Whither  are  men  tending  to-day 
in  consequence  of  it  ?  Would  it  not  have  been  better  for  man- 
kind to  have  stood  by  the  time-honored  traditions  of  former  ages, 
independently  of  the  strong  and  convincing  claims  which  Catho- 
licity offers  to  all  ?  This  is  said  without  in  the  least  attributing 
the  fault  to  sound  philosophy,  without  casting  the  slightest  slur 
on  those  truly  great  and  illustrious  men  who  have  widened  the 
limits  of  the  human  intellect,  and  deserved  well  of  mankind  by 
the  solid  truths  they  have  opened  up  in  their  works  for  the  bene- 
fit and  instruction  of  minds  less  gifted  than  their  own. 


CHAPTEE  XL 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS.  LOYALTY  AND  CONFISCATION. 

Upon  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  in  1603,  the  son  of  the  unfor- 
tunate Mary  Stuart  was  called  to  the  throne  of  England,  and  for 
the  first  time  in  their  history  the  Irish  people  accepted  English 
rule,  gave  their  willing  submission  to  an  English  dynasty,  and 
afterward  displayed  as  great  devotedness  in  supporting  the  fall- 
ing cause  of  their  new  monarchs,  as  in  defending  their  religion 
and  nationality. 

This  feeling  of  allegiance,  born  so  suddenly  and  strangely  in 
the  Irish  breast,  cherished  so  ardently  and  at  the  price  of  so  many 
sacrifices,  finally  raising  the  nation  to  the  highest  pitch  of  hero- 
ism, is  worth  studying  and  investigating  its  true  cause. 

What  ought  to  have  been  the  natural  effect  produced  on  the 
Irish  people  by  the  arrival  of  the  news  that  James  of  Scotland 
had  succeeded  to  Elizabeth  %  The  first  feeling  must  have  been 
one  of  deep  relief  that  the  hateful  tyranny  of  the  Tudors  had 
passed  away,  to  be  supplanted  by  the  rule  of  their  kinsmen  the 
Stuarts — kinsmen,  because  the  Scottish  line  of  kings  was  directly 
descended  from  that  Dal  Kiada  colony  which  Ireland  had  sent 
so  long  ago  to  the  shores  of  Albania,  to  a  branch  of  which  Co- 
lumbkill  belonged. 

For  those  who  were  not  sufficiently  versed  in  antiquarian  gen- 
ealogy to  trace  his  descent  so  far  back,  the  thought  that  James 
was  the  son  of  Mary  Stuart  was  sufficient.  If  any  people  could 
sympathize  with  the  ill-starred  Queen  of  Scots,  that  people  was 
the  Irish.  It  could  not  enter  into  their  ideas  that  the  son  of  the 
murdered  Catholic  queen  should  have  feelings  uncongenial  to 
their  own.  It  is  easy,  then,  to  understand  how,  when  the  news  of 
Elizabeth's  death  and  of  the  accession  of  James  arrived,  the  san- 
guine Irish  heart  leaped  with  a  new  hope  and  joyful  expectation. 

As  for  the  real  disposition  of  that  strangest  of  monarchs, 
James  L,  writers  are  at  variance.  Matthew  O'Connor,  the 
elder,  who  had  in  his  hands  the  books  and  manuscripts  of  Charles 
O'Connor  of  Bellingary,  is  very  positive  in  his  assertions  on  his 
side  of  the  question  : 
17 


258 


TIIE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


"James  was  a  determined  and  implacable  enemy  to  the 
Catholic  religion  ;  he  alienated  his  professors  from  all  attachment 
to  his  government  by  the  virulence  of  his  antipathy.  One  of  his 
first  gracious  proclamations  imported  a  general  jail-delivery, 
except  for  'murderers  and  papists.'  By  another  proclamation 
he  pledged  himself  ' never  to  grant  any  toleration  to  the 
Catholics,'  and  entailed  a  curse  on  his  posterity  if  they  granted 
any." 

Turning  now  to  Dr.  Madden's  "  History  of  the  Penal  Laws," 
we  shall  feel  disposed  to  modify  so  positive  an  opinion.  There 
we  read : 

"  It  is  very  evident  that  his  zeal  for  the  Protestant  Church 
had  more  to  do  with  a  hatred  of  the  Puritans  than  of  popery, 
and  that  he  had  a  hankering,  after  all,  for  the  old  religion  which 
his  mother  belonged  to,  and  for  which  she  had  been  persecuted 
by  the  fanatics  of  Scotland." 

Hume  seems  to  support  this  judgment  of  Dr.  Madden  when 
he  says  that  "  the  principles  of  James  would  have  led  him  to  ear- 
nestly desire  a  unity  of  faith  of  the  Churches  which  had  been 
separated." 

Both  opinions,  however,  agree  in  the  long-run,  since  Dr. 
Madden  is  obliged  to  confess  that  "new  measures  of  severity,  as 
the  bigotry  of  the  times  became  urgent,  were  wrung  from  the 
timid  king.    He  had  neither  moral  nor  political  courage." 

Still,  on  the  day  of  his  coronation,  the  Irish  could  little 
imagine  what  was  in  store  for  them  at  the  hands  of  the  son  of 
Mary  Stuart ;  hence  their  great  rejoicing,  till  the  first  stroke  of 
bitter  disappointment  came  to  open  their  eyes,  and  awaken  them 
to  the  hard  reality.  This  was  the  flight  of  Tyrone  and  Tyrcon- 
nell,  which  had  been  brought  about  by  treachery  and  low  cun- 
ning. These  chieftains  were,  as  they  deserved  to  be,  the  idols 
of  the  nation.  They  were  compelled  to  fly  because,  as  Dr. 
Anderson,  a  Protestant  minister,  says,  "  artful  Cecil  had  em- 
ployed one  St.  Lawrence  to  entrap  the  Earls  of  Tyrone  and  Tyr- 
connell,  the  Lord  of  Devlin,  and  other  Irish  chiefs,  into  a  sham 
plot  which  had  no  evidence  but  his." 

The  real  cause  of  their  flight  was  that  adventurers  and  "un- 
dertakers "  desired  to  "  plant "  Ulster,  though  the  final  treaty 
with  Mountjoy  had  left  both  earls  in  possession  of  their  lands. 
That  treaty  yielded  not  an  acre  of  plunder,  and  was  consequent- 
ly in  English  eyes  a  failure.  The  long,  bloody,  and  promising 
wars  of  Elizabeth's  reign  had  ended,  after  all,  in  forcing  coronets 
on  the  brows  of  O'JSeill  and  O'Donnell,  with  a  royal  deed  added, 
securing  to  them  their  lands,  and  freedom  of  worship  to  all  the 
north. 

James  was  met  by  the  importunate  demand  for  land.  O'Neill, 
O'Donnell,  and  several  other  Irish  chieftains,  were  sacrificed  to 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


259 


meet  this  demand ;  they  were  compelled  to  fly ;  and  they  had 
scarcely  gone  when  millions  of  acres  in  Ulster  were  declared 
to  be  forfeited  to  the  crown,  and  thrown  open  for  "  planting." 

And  here  a  new  feature  in  confiscation  presents  itself,  which 
was  introduced  by  the  first  of  the  Stuart  dynasty,  and  proved  far 
more  galling  to  Irishmen  than  any  thing  they  had  yet  encoun- 
tered in  this  shape. 

In  the  invasion  led  by  Strongbow,  in  the  absorption  of  the 
Kildare  estates  by  Henry  VIII.,  in  the  annexation  of  King's  and 
Queen's  Counties  under  Philip  and  Mary,  even  in  the  last  '*  plan- 
tation "  cf  Munster  by  Elizabeth's  myrmidons  at  the  end  of  the 
Desmond  war,  the  land  had  been  immediately  distributed  among 
the  chief  officers  of  the  victorious  armies.  The  conquered  knew 
that  such  would  be  the  law  of  war ;  the  great  generals  and 
courtiers  who  came  into  possession  scarcely  disturbed  the  tenants. 
A  few  of  the  great  native  and  Anglo-Irish  families  suffered 
sorely  from  the  spoliation  ;  the  people  at  large  scarcely  felt  it, 
except  by  the  destruction  of  clanship  and  the  introduction  of 
feudal  grievances.  Moreover,  the  new  proprietors  were  inter- 
ested in  making  their  tenants  happy,  and  not  unfrequently 
identified  themselves  with  the  people — becoming  in  course  of 
time  true  Irishmen. 

But,  with  the  accession  of  the  first  of  the  Stuarts  to  the 
English  throne,  a  great  alteration  took  place  in  the  disposal  of 
the  land  throughout  Ireland. 

The  Tyrone  war  had  ended  five  years  before,  and  those  who 
had  taken  part  in  the  conflict  had  already  received  their  portion  ; 
the  vanquished,  of  misfortune — the  conquerors,  of  gain.  James 
brought  in  with  him  from  Scotland  a  host  of  greedy  followers  ; 
and  all,  from  first  to  last,  expected  to  rise  with  their  king  into 
wealth  and  honor.  England  was  not  wide  enough  to  hold  them, 
nor  rich  enough  to  satiate  their  appetites.  The  puzzled  but 
crafty  king  saw  a  way  out  of  his  difficulties  in  Ireland.  He  no 
longer  limited  the  distribution  of  land  in  that  country  to  soldiers 
and  officers  of  rank  chiefly.  He  gave  it  to  Scotch  adventurers, 
to  London  trades  companies.  He  settled  it  on  Protestant 
colonies  whose  first  use  of  their  power  was  to  evict  the  former 
tenants  or  clansmen,  and  thus  effect  a  complete  change  in  the 
social  aspect  of  the  north. 

Well  did  they  accomplish  the  task  assigned  them.  Ulster 
became  a  Protestant  colony,  and  the  soil  of  that  province  lias 
ever  since  remained  in  the  hands  of  a  people  alien  to  the 
country. 

Yet  the  Ulstermen  had  been  led  to  believe  that  James  pur- 
posed securing  them  in  their  possessions  ;  for,  according  to  Mr. 
rrendergast,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  "  Cromwellian  settle- 
ment : " 


260 


TITE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


"  On  the  17th  of  July,  1607,  Sir  Arthur  Chichester,  Lord- 
Deputy,  accompanied  by  Sir  John  Davies  and  other  commis- 
sioners, proceeded  to  Ulster,  with  powers  to  inquire  what  land 
each  man  held.  There  appeared  before  them,  in  each  county 
they  visited,  the  chief  lords  and  Irish  gentlemen,  the  heads  of 
creaghts,  and  the  common  people,  the  Brehons  and  Shanachies, 
who  knew  all  the  septs  and  families,  and  took  upon  themselves 
to  tell  what  quantity  of  land  every  man  ought  to  have.  They 
thus  ascertained  and  booked  their  several  lands,  and  the  Lord- 
Deputy  promised  them  estates  in  them.  1  He  thus,'  says  Sir 
J ohn  Davies,  ' made  it  a  year  of  jubilee  to  the  poor  inhabitants, 
because  every  man  was  to  return  to  his  own  house,  and  be 
restored  to  his  ancient  possessions,  and  they  all  went  home 
rejoicing.' 

"  Notwithstanding  these  promises,  the  king,  in  the  following 
year,  issued  his  scheme  for  the  plantation  of  Ulster,  urged  to  it, 
it  would  seem,  by  Sir  Arthur  Chichester,  who  so  largely  profited 

by  it  It  could  not  be  said  that  the  flight  of  the  earls 

gave  occasion  for  this  change,  inasmuch  as  the  king,  immediately 
after,  issued  a  proclamation — which  he  renewed  on  taking  pos- 
session of  both  earls'  territories — assuring  the  inhabitants  that 
they  should  be  protected  and  preserved  in  their  estates." 

It  looks,  indeed,  as  though  the  whole  transaction,  including 
the  promises  and  the  call  for  ascertaining  the  quantity  of  land 
occupied  by  each  inhabitant,  as  also  the  sham  plot  into  which 
the  earls  were  inveigled,  was  but  a  cunning  device  to  bring 
about  the  plantation,  in  which  manors  of  one  thousand,  fifteen 
hundred,  and  three  thousand  acres,  were  offered  to  such  Eng- 
lish and  Scotch  as  should  undertake  to  plant  their  lots  with 
British  Protestants,  and  engage  that  no  Irish  should  dwell  upon 
them.  Meanwhile,  all  who  had  been  in  arms  during  Tyrone's 
war  were  to  be  transplanted  with  their  families,  cattle,  and  fol- 
lowers, to  waste  places  in  Minister  and  Connaught,  and  there  set 
down  at  a  distance  from  one  another. 

Over  and  above  this,  the  Irish  were  indebted  to  James  for  a 
new  project — a  most  ingenious  invention  for  successful  plunder. 
He  was  the  real  author  of  the  celebrated  "  Commission  for  the 
investigation  of  defective  titles." 

It  would  seem  that  the  province  of  Ulster  was  too  small  for 
the  rapacity  of  those  who  were  constantly  urging  upon  the  king 
a  greater  thoroughness  in  his  plans.  It  was  clear,  moreover, 
that  the  English  occupation  of  the  other  three  provinces  had 
hitherto  proved  a  failure.  The  island  had  failed  to  become  An- 
glicised, and  it  was  necessary  to  begin  the  work  anew. 

The  new  commission  wras  presented  to  the  Irish  people  in  a 
most  alluring  guise.  That  political  hypocrisy,  which  to-day 
Btands  for  statesmanship,  is  not  a  growth  of  our  own  times.  The 


THE  IRISH  AKD  THE  STUARTS. 


261 


intention  of  James  confined  itself  to  putting  an  end  to  all  uncer- 
tainty on  the  subject  of  titles,  and  bestowing  on  each  land-owner 
one  which,  for  the  future,  should  be  unimpeachable.  But  the 
result  went  beyond  his  intention.  This  measure  became,  in  fact, 
an  engine  of  universal  spoliation.  It  failed  to  secure  even  those 
who  succeeded  in  retaining  a  portion  of  their  former  estates  in 
possession,  as  Strafford  made  manifest,  who,  despite  aU  the  un- 
impeachable titles  conferred  by  James,  managed  to  confiscate  to 
his  own  profit  the  greater  part  of  the  province  of  Con  naught. 

It  is  fitting  to  give  a  few  details  of  this  new  measure  of 
James,  in  order  to  show  the  gratitude  which  the  Irish  owed  the 
Stuarts,  if  on  that  account  only.  In  "Ireland  under  English 
Rule,"  the  Rev.  A.  Perraud  justly  remarks :  "  Most  Irish  families 
held  possession  of  their  lands  but  by  tradition,  and  their  rights 
could  not  be  proved  by  regular  title-deeds.  By  royal  command, 
a  general  inquiry  was  instituted,  and  whoever  could  not  prove 
his  right  to  the  seat  of  his  ancestors,  by  authentic  documents, 
was  mercilessly  but  juridically  despoiled  of  it ;  the  pen  of  the 
lawyer  thus  making  as  many  conquests  as  the  blade  of  the  mer- 
cenary." 

The  advisers  of  James — those  who  aided  him  in  this  scheme 
— were  fully  alive  to  its  efficiency  in  serving  their  ends.  A  few 
years  previously,  Arthur  Chichester  and  Sir  John  Davies  had 
only  to  consult  the  Brehon  lawyers  and  the  chroniclers  of  the 
tribes,  whose  duty  it  was  to  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  limits  of  the  various  territories,  and  keep  the  records  in  their 
memory,  in  order  to  procure  from  the  Ulster  men  the  proofs  of 
their  rights  to  property.  Up  to  that  time  the  word  of  those  who 
were  authorized,  by  custom,  to  pronounce  on  such  subjects,  was 
law  to  every  Irishman.  And,  indeed,  the  verdict  of  these  was 
all-sufficient,  inasmuch  as  the  task  was  not  overtaxing  to  the 
memory  of  even  an  ordinary  man,  since  it  consisted  in  remem- 
bering, not  the  landed  property  of  each  individual,  but  the  limits 
of  the  territory  of  each  clan. 

The  clan  territories  were  as  precisely  marked  off  as  in  any 
European  state  to-day ;  and,  if  any  change  in  frontier  occurred,  it 
was  the  result  of  war  between  the  neighboring  clans,  and  there- 
fore known  to  all.  To  suppose,  then,  under  such  a  state  of  land 
tenure,  that  the  territory  of  the  Maguire  clan,  for  instance,  be- 
longed exclusively  to  Maguire,  and  that  he  could  prove  his  title 
to  the  property  by  legal  documents,  was  erroneous — in  fact,  such 
a  thing  was  impossible.  Yet,  such  was  the  ground  on  which  the 
kinor  based  his  establishment  of  the  odious  commission. 

The  measure  meant  nothing  less  than  the  simple  spoliation 
of  all  those  who  came  under  its  provisions  at  the  time.  Matthew 
O'Connor  has  furnished  some  instances  of  its  workings,  which 
may  bring  into  stronger  light  the  enormity  of  such  an  attempt  * 


262 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


"  The  immense  possessions  of  Bryan  na  Murtha  O'Rourke 
had  been  granted  to  his  son  Teige,  by  patent,  in  the  first  year  of 
the  king's  reign,  and  to  the  heirs  male  of  his  body.  Teige  died, 
leaving  several  sons  ;  their  titles  were  clear ;  no  plots  or  con- 
spiracies could  be  urged  to  invalidate  them.  By  the  medium  of 
those  inquisitions,  they  were  found,  one  and  all,  to  be  bastards. 
The  eldest  son,  Bryan  O'Rourke,  was  put  off  with  a  miserable 
pension,  and  detained  in  England  lest  he  should  claim  his  inher- 
itance.   Yet,  in  this  case,  the  title  was  actually  in  existence. 

"  In  the  county  of  Longford,  three-fourths  of  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  cartrons,  the  property  of  the  O'Farrells,  were  granted 
to  adventurers,  to  the  undoing  and  beggary  of  that  princely 
family.  Twenty-five  of  the  septs  were  dispossessed  of  their  all, 
and  to  the  other  septs  were  assigned  mountainous  and  barren 
tracts  about  one-fourth  of  their  former  possessions. 

"  The  O'Byrnes,  of  Wicklow,  were  robbed  of  their  property 
by  a  conspiracy  unparalleled  even  in  the  annals  of  those  times ; 
fabricated  charges  of  treason,  perjury,  and  even  legal  murder, 
were  employed ;  and,  though  the  innocence  of  those  victims  of 
rapacious  oppression  was  established,  yet  they  were  never  re- 
stored." 

With  regard  to  the  An^lo-Irish,  and  even  such  of  the  na- 
tives  as  had  consented  to  accept  titles  from  the  English  kings, 
those  titles,  some  of  which  went  back  as  far  as  Strongbow's 
invasion,  were  brought  under  the  "inquiry"  of  the  new  com- 
mission— with  what  result  mav  be  imagined.  An  astute  legist 
can  discover  flaws  in  the  best-drawn  legal  papers.  In  the  eye 
of  the  law,  the  neglect  of  recording  is  fatal  ;  and  it  was 
proved  that  many  proprietors,  whose  titles  had  been  bestowed 
by  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth,  were  not  recorded,  simply  by 
bribing  the  clerks  who  were  charged  with  the  office  of  recording 
them. 

This  portion  of  our  subject  must  present  strange  features  to 
readers  acquainted  with  the  laws  concerning  property  which  ob- 
tain among  civilized  nations.  In  making  the  necessary  studies 
for  this  most  imperfect  sketch,  the  writer  has  been  surprised  at 
finding  that  not  one  of  the  authors  whom  he  has  consulted  has 
spoken  of  any  thing  beyond  the  cruelty  of  compelling  Irish  land- 
owners to  exhibit  title-deeds,  which  it  was  known  they  did  not 
and  could  not  possess.  Not  a  single  one  has  ever  said  a  word 
of  "  prescription  ; "  yet,  this  alone  was  enough  to  arrest  the  pro- 
ceedings of  any  English  court,  if  it  followed  the  rules  of  law 
which  govern  civilized  communities. 

Most  of  the  estates,  then  declared  to  be  escheated  to  the  king, 
had  been  in  possession  of  the  families  to  which  the  holders 
belonged,  for  centuries ;  we  may  go  so  far,  in  the  case  of  some 
Irish  families  and  tribes,  as  to  say  for  thousands  of  years.  But, 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


263 


to  disturb  property  which  has  been  held  for  even  less  than  a 
century,  would  convulse  any  nation  subjected  to  such  a  revolu- 
tionary process.  No  country  in  the  world  could  stand  such  a 
test ;  it  would  loosen  in  a  day  all  the  bonds  that  hold  society 
together. 

If  the  commission  set  on  foot  by  James  did  not  go  to  the 
extreme  lengths  to  which  it  was  carried  by  those  wTho  came  after 
him,  he  it  was  who  established  what  bore  the  semblance  of  a 
legal  precedent  for  the  excesses  of  Strafford,  under  Charles  L, 
which  reached  their  utmost  limits  in  the  hands  of  Cromwell's 
parliamentary  commissioners.  James  set  the  engine  of  destruc- 
tion in  action :  they  worked  it  to  its  end.  The  Irish  might 
justly  lay  at  his  door  all  the  woes  which  ensued  to  them  from  the 
principles  emanating  from  him.  Even  during  his  reign  they 
saw,  with  instinctive  horror,  the  abyss  which  he  had  opened  up  to 
swallow  all  their  inheritance.  The  first  commission  of  James 
commenced  its  operations  by  reporting  three  hundred  and  eighty- 
five  thousand  acres  in  Leinster  alone  as  "  discovered,"  inasmuch 
as  the  titles  "  were  not  such  as  ought "  (in  their  judgment)  "  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  his  Majesty's  designs." 

Hence,  long  before  the  death  of  James,  all  the  hopes  which 
his  accession  had  raised  in  the  minds  of  the  Irish  had  vanished  ; 
yet,  strange  to  say,  they  were  not  cured  of  their  love  for  the 
Stuart  dynasty.  They  hailed  the  coming  of  Charles,  the  husband 
of  a  Catholic  princess,  with  joy.  His  marriage  took  place  a  year 
previous  to  the  death  of  his  father  ;  and,  to  know  that  Henrietta 
of  France  was  to  be  their  queen,  was  enough  to  assure  the  Irish 
that,  henceforth,  they  would  enjoy  the  freedom  of  their  religion. 
The  same  motive  always  awakes  in  them  hope  and  joy.  Men 
may  smile  at  such  an  idea,  but  it  is  with  a  profound  respect  for 
the  Irish  character  that  such  a  sentence  is  written.  Hope  of 
religious  freedom  is  the  noblest  sentiment  which  can  move  the 
breast  of  man ;  and  if  there  be  reason  for  admiration  in  the 
motive  which  urges  men  to  fight  and  die  for  their  firesides  and 
families,  how  much  more  so  in  that  which  causes  them  to  set 
above  all  their  altars  and  their  God  ! 

This  time  their  hope  seemed  well-founded ;  for  the  treaty 
concluded  between  England  and  France  conferred  the  right  on 
the  Catholic  princess  ot  educating  her  children  by  this  marriage 
till  the  age  of  thirteen.  And,  in  addition,  conditions  favorable 
to  the  English  Catholics  were  inserted  in  the  same  treaty. 

Bat  people  were  not  then  aware  of  the  reason  for  the  inser- 
tion of  those  conditions.  Hume,  later  on,  being  better  ac- 
quainted wTith  what  at  the  time  was  a  secret,  states  in  his  history 
that  "  the  court  of  England  always  pretended,  even  in  the  me- 
morials to  the  French  court,  that  all  the  conditions  favorable  to 
the  English  Catholics  were  inserted  in  the  marriage  treaty  merely 


264: 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


to  please  the  Pope,  and  that  their  strict  execution  was,  by  an 
agreement  with  France,  secretly  dispensed  with." 

The  Irish  rejoiced,  however ;  and  Charles  and  his  ministers 
encouraged  their  expectations.  Lord  Falkland,  in  the  name  of 
the  king,  promised  that,  it*  the  Catholic  lords  should  present 
Charles,  who  needed  money,  with  a  voluntary  tribute,  he  would 
in  return  grant  them  certain  immunities  and  protections,  which 
acquired  later  on  a  great  celebrity  under  the  name  of  "  graces." 

The  chief  of  these  were — to  allow  "  recusants  n  to  practise  in 
the  courts  of  law,  and  to  sue  out  the  livery  of  their  land,  merely 
on  taking  an  act  of  civil  allegiance  instead  of  the  oath  of  suprem- 
acy ;  that  the  claims  of  the  crown  should  be  limited  to  the  last 
sixty  years — a  period  long  enough  in  all  conscience ;  and  that 
the  inhabitants  of  Connaught  should  be  allowed  to  make  a  new 
enrolment  of  their  estates,  to  be  accepted  by  the  king.  A  Par- 
liament was  promised  to  sit  in  a  short  time,  in  order  to  confirm 
all  these  "  graces." 

The  subsidy  promised  by  the  Irish  lords  amounted  to  the 
then  enormous  sum  of  forty  thousand  pounds  sterling,  to  be  paid 
annually  for  three  years.  Two-thirds  of  it  was  paid,  according 
to  Matthew  O'Connor,  but  no  one  of  the  "graces"  was  forth- 
coming, the  king  finding  he  had  promised  more  than  he  could 
perforin. 

Instead  of  enabling  the  land-owners  of  Connaught  to  obtain 
a  new  title  by  a  new  enrolment,  Strafford,  with  the  connivance 
of  Charles,  devised  a  project  which  would  have  enabled  the  king 
to  dispose  of  the  whole  province  to  the  enriching  of  his  exchequer. 
This  project  consisted  in  throwing  open  the  whole  territory  to 
the  court  of  "  defective  titles."  To  legalize  this  spoliation,  the 
archment  grant,  five  hundred  years  old,  given  to  Poderic 
'Connor  and  Richard  de  Burgo,  by  Henry  II.,  was  set  up  as 
rendering  invalid  the  claims  of  immemorial  possession  by  the 
Irish,  although  confirmed  by  recent  compositions. 

In  the  counties  of  Roscommon,  Mayo,  and  Sligo,  juries  were 
found  for  the  crown.  The  honesty  and  courageous  resistance  of 
a  Galway  jury  prevented  the  carrying  out  of  the  measure  in  that 
county.  Strafford  resented  this  rebuff  deeply  ;  and  the  brave 
Galway  jurors  were  punished  without  mercy  for  their  "  contu- 
macy," for  they  had  been  told  openly  to  find  for  the  king.  Com- 
pelled to  appear  in  the  Ca6tle  chamber,  they  were  each  fined 
four  thousand  pounds,  their  estates  seized,  and  themselves  im- 
prisoned until  their  fines  should  be  paid  ;  while  the  sheriff,  who 
was  also  fined  to  the  same  amount,  not  being  able  to  pay,  died 
in  prison.  Such  were  a  few  of  the  "  graces  "  granted  the  Irish 
on  the  accession  of  Charles  I. 

Meanwhile,  the  king's  difficulties  with  his  English  subjects 
drove  him  to  turn  for  hope  to  the  Scotch,  upon  whom  he  had 


TIIE  IRISH  AKD  TITE  STUARTS. 


205 


attempted  to  force  Episcopalian  ism.  The  resistance  of  the 
Scotch,  and  the  celebrated  Covenant  by  which  they  bound  them- 
selves, are  well  known.  Charles,  finally,  granted  the  Covenanters 
not  only  liberty  of  conscience,  but  even  the  religious  supremacy 
of  Presbyterianism,  paying  their  army,  moreover,  for  a  portion 
of  the  time  it  passed  under  service  in  the  rebellion  against  him- 
self. 

The  example  of  the  Scotch  was  certainly  calculated  to  in- 
flame the  Irish  with  ardor,  and  drive  them  likewise  into  rebel- 
lion. What  was  the  oppression  of  Scotland  compared  to  that 
under  which  Ireland  had  so  long  groaned  ?  Surely  the  final 
attempt  of  the  chief  minister  of  Charles  to  rob  them  of  the  one 
province  which  had  hitherto  escaped,  was  enough  to  open  their 
eyes,  and  convert  their  faith  in  the  Stuart  dynasty  into  hatred 
and  determined  opposition.  Yet  were  they  on  the  eve  of  car- 
rying their  devotion  to  this  faithless  and  worthless  line  to  the 
height  of  heroism.  The  generosity  of  the  nature  which  is  in 
them  could  find  an  excuse  for  Charles.  "  He  would  have  done 
us  right,"  they  thought,  "  had  he  been  left  free."  From  the 
rebellion  of  his  subjects,  in  England  and  Scotland,  they  could 
only  draw  one  conclusion — that  he  was  the  victim  of  Puritan- 
ism, for  which  they  could  entertain  no  feeling  but  one  of  horror ; 
and  it  is  a  telling  fact  that  their  attachment  to  their  religion 
kept  them  faithful  to  the  sovereign  to  whom  they  had  sworn 
their  allegiance,  however  unworthy  he  might  be. 

Thus  in  the  famous  rising  of  1611,  when  in  one  night  Ireland, 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  cities,  freed  herself  from  the  oppress- 
or (the  failure  of  the  plan  in  Dublin  being  the  only  thing  which 
prevented  a  complete  success  ;  the  English  of  the  rale  still  refus- 
ing to  combine  with  the  Irish),  the  native  Irish  alone,  left  to  their 
own  resources,  proclaimed  emphatically  in  explicit  terms  their 
loyalty  to  the  king,  whom  they  credited  with  a  just  and  toler- 
ant disposition,  if  freed  from  the  restraints  imposed  upon  him  by 
the  Puritanical  faction.  A  further  fact  stranger  still,  and  stjL 
more  calculated  to  shake  their  confidence  in  the  monarch,  oc- 
curred shortly  after,  which  indeed  raises  the  loyalty  of  the  nation 
to  a  height  inconceivable  and  impossible  to  any  people,  unless  one 
whose  conscience  is  swayed  by  the  sense  of  stern  duty. 

When  the  Scottish  Covenanters,  whose  rebellion  had  secured 
them  in  possession  of  all  they  demanded,  heard  of  the  Irish 
movement,  they  were  at  once  seized  with  a  fanatical  zeal  urging 
them  to  stamp  out  the  Irish  "Popish  rebellion."  King  Charles, 
who  was  then  in  Edinburgh,  expressed  his  gratification  at  their 
proposal,  and  no  time  was  lost  in  shipping  a  force  of  two  thou- 
sand Scots  across  the  Channel.  They  landed  at  Antrim,  when 
they  began  those  frightful  massacres  which  opened  by  driving 
into  the  sea  three  thousand  Irish  inhabitants  of  the  island  Magee. 


266 


THE  IRISH  AXD  THE  STUARTS. 


TYlien,  according  to  M.  O'Connor's  "  Irish  Catholics,"  "  letters 
coDveying  the  news  of  the  intended  invasion  of  the  Scots  were 
intercepted  ;  when  the  speeches  of  leading  members  in  the  Eng- 
lish Commons,  the  declaration  of  the  Irish  Lord-Justices,  and  of 
the  principal  members  of  the  Dublin  Council,  countenanced  those 
rumors ;  when  Mr.  Pjm  gave  out  that  he  would  not  leave  a  Pa- 
pist in  Ireland ;  when  Sir  William  Parsons  declared  that  within 
a  twelvemonth  not  a  Catholic  should  be  seen  in  the  whole  coun- 
try ;  when  Sir  John  Clot  worthy  affirmed  that  the  conversion  of 
the  Papists  was  to  be  effected  with  the  Bible  in  one  hand  and 
the  sword  in  the  other,"  and  the  King  all  the  while  seemed  to 
allow  and  consent  to  it,  the  Irish  were  not  in  the  least  dismaved 
by  those  rumors,  but  set  about  establishing  in  the  convulsed 
island  a  sort  of  order  in  the  name  of  God  and  the  king ! 

Then  for  the  first  time  did  native  and  Anglo-Irish  Catholics 
take  common  side  in  a  common  cause.  This  was  the  union 
which  Archbishop  Browne  had  foreseen,  which  had  shown  itself 
in  symptoms  from  time  to  time,  but  which  had  oftener  been 
broken  by  the  old  animosity.  But,  at  last,  convinced  that  the 
only  party  on  which  they  could  rely,  and  the  party  which  truly 
supported  the  reigning  dynasty,  was  that  of  the  Ulster  chiefs, 
the  Catholic  lords  of  the  Pale  threw  themselves  heart  and  soul 
into  it,  and,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Catholic  bishops  who  then 
came  forward,  together  they  formed  the  celebrated  "  Confedera- 
tion of  Kilkenny  "  in  1642. 

Had  Charles  even  then  possessed  the  courage,  honesty,  or  wis- 
dom to  recognize  and  acknowledge  his  true  friends,  he  might 
have  been  spared  the  fate  which  overtook  him ;  but  all  he  did 
was  almost  to  break  up  the  only  coalition  which  stood  up  boldly 
in  his  favor. 

A  circumstance  not  yet  touched  upon  meets  us  here.  Prot- 
estantism was  at  this  time  effecting  a  complete  change  in  the 
rules  of  judgment  and  conduct  which  men  had  hitherto  fol- 
lowed. In  place  of  the  old  principles  of  political  morality  which 
up  to  this  period  had  regulated  the  actions  of  Christians,  notions 
of  independence,  of  subversion  of  existing  governments,  of  rev- 
olutions in  Church  and  state,  were  for  the  first  time  in  Christian 
history  scattered  broadcast  through  the  world,  and  beginning 
that  series  of  catastrophes  which  has  made  European  history 
since,  and  which  is  far  from  being  exhausted  yet.  The  Irish 
stood  firm  by  the  old  principles,  and,  though  they  became  victims 
to  their  fidelity,  they  never  shrank  from  the  consequences  of 
what  they  knew  to  be  their  duty,  and  to  those  principles  they 
remain  faithful  to-day. 

To  return  from  this  short  digression :  The  Irish  hierarchy, 
the  native  Irish  and  the  Anglo-Irish  lords  of  the  Pale,  had 
combined  together  to  form  the  "  Confederation  of  Kilkenny,"  in 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


267 


which  confederation  lay  the  germ  of  a  truly  great  nation.  Early 
in  the  struggle  the  Catholic  hierarchy  saw  that  it  was  for  them 
to  take  the  initiative  in  the  movement,  and  they  took  it  in  right 
earnest.  They  could  not  be  impassive  spectators  when  the  ques- 
tion at  issue  was  the  defence  of  the  Catholic  religion,  joined  this 
time  with  the  rights  of  their  monarch.  They  met  in  provincial 
synod  at  Kells,  where,  after  mature  deliberation,  the  cause  of 
the  confederates,  "God  and  the  king,"  freedom  of  worship  and 
loyalty  to  the  legitimate  sovereign,  was  declared  just  and  holy, 
and,  after  lifting  a  warning  voice  against  the  barbarities  which 
had  commenced  on  both  sides,  and  ordaining  the  abolition  and 
oblivion  of  all  distinctions  between  native  Irish  and  old  English, 
they  took  measures  for  convoking  a  national  synod  at  Kilkenny. 

It  met  on  the  10th  of  May,  1643.  An  oath  of  association 
bound  all  Catholics  throughout  the  land.  It  was  ordained  that 
a  general  assembly  comprising  all  the  lords  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral and  the  gentry  should  be  held ;  that  the  assembly  should 
select  members  from  its  body  to  represent  the  different  provinces 
and  principal  cities,  to  be  called  the  Supreme  Council,  which 
should  sit  from  day  to  day,  dispense  justice,  appoint  to  offices,  and 
carry  on  the  executive  government  of  the  country. 

Meanwhile  the  Irish  abroad,  the  exiles,  had  heard  of  the 
movement,  and  several  prominent  chieftains  came  back  to  take 
part  in  the  struggle ;  while  those  who  remained  away  helped  the 
cause  by  gaining  the  aid  of  the  Catholic  sovereigns,  and  sending 
home  all  the  funds  and  munitions  of  war  they  could  procure. 
Among  these,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  was  the  learned  Luke 
Wadding,  then  at  Rome  engaged  in  writing  his  celebrated  works, 
who  dispatched  money  and  arms  contributed  by  the  Holy  Father. 
John  B.  Rinuccini,  Archbishop  of  Fermo,  sent  by  the  Pope  as 
Nuncio,  sailed  in  the  same  ship  which  conveyed  those  contribu- 
tions to  Ireland. 

The  Catholic  prelates  thus  originated  a  free  government  with 
nothing  revolutionary  in  its  character,  but  combining  some  of  the 
forms  of  the  old  Irish  Feis  with  the  chief  features  of  modern 
parliamentary  governments.  Matthew  O'Connor  makes  the  fol- 
lowing just  observations  on  this  subject  in  his  "  Irish  Catholics  :  " 

"  The  duty  of  obedience  to  civil  government  was  so  deeply 
impressed  on  the  Catholic  mind,  at  this  period,  in  Ireland,  that 
it  degenerated  into  passive  submission.  These  impressions  ori- 
ginated in  religious  zeal,  and  were  fostered  by  persecution.  The 
spiritual  authority  of  the  clergy  was  found  requisite  to  soften 
those  notions,  and  temper  them  with  ideas  of  the  constitutional, 
social,  and  Christian  right  of  resistance  in  self-defence.  The  no- 
bility and  gentry  fully  concurred  in  those  proceedings  of  the 
clergy,  and  the  nation  afterward  ratified  them  in  a  general  con- 
vention held  at  Kilkenny,  in  the  subsequent  month  of  October. 


263 


THE  IRISH  AST)  THE  STUARTS. 


The  national  nnion  seemed  to  be  at  last  cemented  by  the  wishes 
of  all  orders,  and  the  interests  of  all  parties." 

The  fact  is,  the  nation  had  been  brought  to  life,  and  took 
its  stand  on  a  new  footing.  When  the  general  assembly  met, 
in  October,  eleven  bishops  and  fourteen  lay  lords  formed  what 
may  be  called  the  Irish  peerage  ;  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
six  commoners  represented  the  large  majority  of  the  Irish 
constituencies ;  a  great  lawyer  of  the  day,  Patrick  Darcy,  was 
elected  chancellor ;  and  a  Supreme  Council  of  six  members 
from  each  province  constituted  what  may  be  called  the  Ex- 
ecutive. 

This  government,  which  really  ruled  Ireland  without  any  in- 
terference until  Ormond  succeeded  in  breaking  it  up,  was  obeyed 
and  acknowledged  throughout  the  land.  It  undertook  and  car- 
ried out  all  the  functions  of  its  high  office,  such  as  the  coining  of 
money,  appointing  circuit  judges,  sending  ambassadors  abroad, 
and  commissioning  officers  to  direct  the  operations  of  the  na- 
tional army.  Among  these  latter,  one  name  is  sufficient  to 
vouch  for  their  efficiency  :  that  of  Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  who  had 
returned,  with  many  others,  from  the  Continent,  in  the  July  of 
that  year,  and  formally  assumed  the  command  of  the  army  of 
Ulster. 

Owen  Roe  O'Neill  was  errand-nephew  to  Hugh  of  Tyrone. 
Unknown,  even  now,  to  Europe,  his  name  still  lives  in  the 
memory  of  his  countrvmen.  "  The  head  of  the  Hy-Xiall  race, 
the  descendant  of  a  hundred  kings,  the  inheritor  of  their  virtues, 
without  a  taint  of  their  vices,  he  would  have  deserved  a  crown, 
and,  on  a  larger  theatre,  would  have  acquired  the  title  of  a 
hero." — (M.  O'Connor?) 

Had  Charles  recognized  this  government,  which  proclaimed 
him  king,  discharged  from  office  the  traitors,  Borlase  and  Par- 
sons, who  plotted  against  him,  and  not  surrendered  his  authority 
to  Ormond,  Ireland  would  probably  have  been  saved  from  the 
horrors  impending,  and  Charles  himself  from  the  scaffold.  What- 
ever the  issue  might  have  been,  the  fact  remains  that  the  Irish 
then  proved  they  could  establish  a  solid  government  of  their 
own,  and  that  it  is  an  altogether  erroneous  idea  to  imagine  them 
incapable  of  governing  themselves. 

It  is  impossible  to  enter  here  upon  the  details  of  the  intricate 
complications  which  ensued — complications  which  were  chiefly 
owing  to  the  plots  of  Ormond ;  but,  it  may  be  stated  fearlessly 
that,  the  more  the  history  of  those  times  is  studied,  the  more  cer- 
tainly is  the  "national"  party,  with  the  Nuncio  Rinuccini  for 
head  and  director,  recognized  as  the  one  which,  better  than  anv 
other,  could  have  saved  Ireland.  At  least,  no  true  Irishman  will 
now  pretend  that  the  "  peace  party,"  headed  by  Ormond,  which 
was  pitted  against  the  "  jSuncionists,"  could  bring  good  to  the 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


269 


country ;  on  the  contrary,  its  subsequent  misfortunes  are  to  be 
ascribed  directly  to  it. 

To  stigmatize  it  as  it  deserves,  needs  no  more  than  to  say  that 
among  its  chief  leaders  were  Ormond,  its  head  and  projector,  and 
Murrough  O'Brien,  of  Inchiquin,  to  this  day  justly  known  as 
Murrough  of  the  burnings.  These  two  men  were  the  product 
of  the  u  refined  policy  "  of  England  to  kill  Catholicism  in  the 
higher  classes  by  the  operation  of  one  of  the  laws  that  governed 
the  oppressed  nation — wardship. 

Both  Inchiquin  and  Ormond  were  born  of  Catholic  fathers, 
and  all  their  relations,  during  their  lives,  remained  Catholics. 
But,  their  fathers  dying  during  the  minority  of  both,  the  law  took 
their  education  out  of  the  hands  of  the  nearest  kin,  to  give  it  to 
English  Protestant  wardens,  in  the  name  of  the  king,  who  was 
supposed  by  the  law  to  be  their  legitimate  guardian.  This  was 
one  of  the  fruits  of  feudalism.  They  were  duly  brought  up  by 
these  wardens  in  the  Protestant  religion,  and  received  a  Prot- 
estant education.  They  grew  up,  fully  impressed  with  the  idea 
that  the  country  which  gave  them  birth  was  a  barbarous  coun- 
try ;  the  parents  to  whom  they  owed  their  lives  were  idolaters  ; 
and  their  fellow-countrymen  a  set  of  villains,  only  fitted  to  be- 
come, and  forever  remain,  paupers  and  slaves. 

There  is  no  exaggeration  in  these  expressions,  as  anybody 
must  concede  who  has  studied  the  opinions  and  prejudices  enter- 
tained by  the  English  with  regard  to  the  Irish,  from  that  period 
down  almost  to  our  own  days.  At  any  rate,  to  one  acquainted 
with  the  workings  of  the  "  Court  of  Wards,"  there  is  nothing, 
surprising  in  the  fact  that  Ormond,  the  descendant  of  so  many 
illustrious  men  of  the  great  Butler  family — a  family  at  all  times 
so  attached  to  the  Catholic  faith,  and  which  afterward  furnished 
so  many  victims  to  the  transplantation  schemes  of  Cromwell — 
should  himself  become  an  inveterate  enemy  to  the  religion  of  his 
own  parents,  and  to  those  who  professed  it ;  and  that  he  should 
employ  the  great  gifts  which  God  had  granted  him,  solely  to 
scheme  against  this  religion,  and  prevent  his  native  countrymen 
from  receiving  even  the  scanty  advantages  which  Charles  at  one 
time  was  willing  to  concede  to  them,  through  Lord  Glanmorgan. 

It  was  Ormond  who  prevented  the  execution  of  the  treaty 
between  that  lord  and  the  confederates,  the  provisions  of  which 
were — 

1.  The  Catholics  of  Ireland  were  to  enjoy  the  free  and  public 
exercise  of  their  religion. 

2.  They  were  to  hold,  and  have  secure  for  their  use,  all  the 
Catholic  churches  not  then  in  actual  possession  of  Protestants. 

3.  They  were  to  be  exempt  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Prot- 
estant clergy. 

But,  thanks  to  his  education,  such  provisions  were  too  much 


270 


TILE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUAPwTS. 


for  Ormond,  the  son  of  a  Catholic  father,  and  whose  mother,  at 
the  very  time  living  a  pious  and  excellent  life,  would  have  re- 
joiced to  see  those  advantages  secured  to  her  Church  and  herself, 
in  common  with  the  rest  of  her  countrymen  and  women. 

In  like  manner,  Murrough  O'Brien,  the  Baron  of  Inchiquin, 
the  descendant  of  so  many  Catholic  kings  and  saints,  whose  name 
was  a  glory  in  itself,  and  so  closely  linked  to  the  Catholic  glories 
of  the  island,  was  converted,  by  the  education  which  he  had  re- 
ceived, into  a  most  cruel  oppressor  of  the  Church  of  his  baptism. 
His  expeditions,  through  the  same  country  which  his  ancestors 
had  ruled,  were  characterized  by  all  the  barbarities  practised  at 
the  time  by  Munro,  Coote,  and  all  the  parliamentary  leaders  of 
the  Scotch  Puritans,  and  would  have  fitted  him  as  a  worthy 
compeer  of  Cromwell  and  Ireton,  who  were  soon  to  follow.  The 
name  of  Cashel  and  its  cathedral,  where  he  murdered  so  many 
priests,  women,  and  children,  around  the  altar  adorned  by  the 
great  and  good  Cormac  McCullinan,  would  alone  suffice  to  hand 
his  name  down  to  the  execration  of  posterity. 

Ormond  and  Murrough  being  the  two  chiefs  of  the  "peace 
party,"  what  wonder  that  the  prelates,  who  had  so  earnestly 
labored  at  the  formation  of  the  Kilkenny  Confederation,  and  the 
Nuncio  at  their  head,  refused  to  have  aught  to  do  with  projects 
in  which  such  men  were  concerned,  when  it  is  borne  in  mind 
also  that  several  provisions  of  that  "  peace  treaty 99  were  directly 
opposed  to  the  oath  taken  by  the  Confederates  ?  But,  unfortu 
nately,  Ormond  was  a  skilful  diplomat,  had  been  dispatched  by 
the  king,  and  was  supposed  to  be  carrying  out  the  ideas  sug- 
gested to  him  by  the  unhappy  monarch.  His  representations, 
therefore,  could  not  fail  to  carry  weight,  principally  with  the 
Auglo-Irish  lords  of  the  Pale,  many  of  whom,  influenced  by  his 
courtly  manners  and  address,  declared  openly  for  the  proposed 
u  peace." 

Thus  did  the  peace  sow  the  germs  of  division  and  even  war 
among  the  Irish.  The  unity  among  the  Catholics,  so  full  of 
promise,  was  soon  broken  up ;  and  those  who  had  met  each 
other  in  such  a  brotherly  spirit  in  the  day  when  the  native  chiefs 
and  Anglo-Irish  lords  assembled  together  at  Tara,  who  swore 
then  that  the  division  of  centuries  should  exist  no  longer,  began 
to  look  upon  each  other  again  as  enemies.  Without  going  at 
length  into  the  vicissitudes  of  those  various  contentions,  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  in  the  end  war  broke  out  between  those  who 
had  so  recently  taken  the  oath  of  confederation  together.  Owen 
Roe  O'Neill,  the  victor  of  Benburb,  and  the  only  man  who 
could  direct  the  Irish  armies,  was  attacked  by  Preston  and  other 
lords  of  the  Pale,  and  died,  as  some  historians  allege,  of  poison 
administered  to  him  by  one  of  them. 

This  was  the  result  of  the  intrigues  of  Ormond;  neverthe 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


271 


less,  diaries  continued  to  place  confidence  in  him,  and  though  he 
had  been  twice  obliged  to  resign  his  lieutenancy,  and  once  to  fly 
the  country,  the  infatuated  sovereign  sent  him  back  once  more. 

It  was  only  at  the  end  of  the  struggle,  when  the  ill-fated  king 
was  at  length  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  that  Ormond  could  be 
brought  to  consent  to  conditions  acceptable  to  the  national 
party.  But  then  it  was  too  late ;  the  parliamentary  forces  had 
carried  every  thing  before  them  in  England ;  England  was 
already  republican  to  the  core  ;  and  the  armies  which  had  been 
employed  against  the  Cavaliers,  once  the  efforts  of  the  latter 
had  ceased  with  the  death  of  the  king,  were  at  liberty  to  leave 
the  country,  now  submissive  to  parliamentary  rule,  and  cross 
over  to  Ireland,  with  Cromwell  at  their  head,  to  crush  out  the 
nation  almost,  and  concentrate  on  that  fated  soil,  within  the 
short  space  of  nine  months,  all  the  horrors  of  past  centuries. 

By  the  death  of  Owen  Roe  O'Neill  just  at  that  time,  Ireland 
was  left  without  a  leader  fit  to  cope  with  the  great  republican 
general.  The  country  had  already  been  devastated  by  Coote, 
Munro,  St.  Leger,  and  other  Scotch  and  English  Puritans ;  but 
the  massacres  which,  until  the  coming  of  Cromwell,  had  been, 
at  least,  only  local  and  checked  by  the  troops  of  Owen  Hoe, 
soon  extended  throughout  the  island,  unarrested  by  any  forces 
in  the  field.  The  Cromwellian  soldiers,  not  content  with  the 
character  of  warriors,  came  as  "  avengers  of  the  Lord,"  to  destroy 
an  "  idolatrous  people." 

That  their  real  design  was  to  exterminate  the  nation,  and  use 
the  opportunity  which  then  presented  itself  for  that  purpose, 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  It  was  only  after  a  fair  trial  that  the 
project  was  found  to  be  impossible,  and  that  other  expedients 
were  devised.  Coote  had  previously  acted  with  this  design  in 
view,  as  is  now  an  ascertained  fact,  and  had  been  encouraged  in 
the  course  he  pursued  by  the  Dublin  government.1  The  same 
might  be  shown  of  St.  Leger,  in  Minister,  toward  the  beginning 
of  the  insurrection.  At  all  events,  all  doubt  in  the  matter,  if  any 
existed,  ceased  with  the  landing  of  Cromwell  in  16^9,  when  the 
real  object  of  the  war  at  once  showed  itself  everywhere. 

The  result  of  this  man's  policy  has  been  painted  by  Yille- 
main,  in  his  " Ilistoire  de  Cromwell"  in  a  sentence:  "Ireland 
became  a  desert  which  the  few  remaining  inhabitants  described 
by  the  mournful  saying, '  There  was  not  water  enough  to  drown  a 
man,  not  wood  enough  to  hang  him,  not  earth  enough  to  bury 
him.'  " 

The  French  writer  attributes  to  the  whole  island  what  was 
said  of  only  a  part  of  it.  To  this  day,  the  name  of  Cromwell  is 
justly  execrated  in  Ireland,  and  "  the  curse  of  Cromwell  "  is  one 


1  See  Matthew  O'Connor's  "  Irish  Catholics.10 


272 


THE  IRISH  AKD  THE  STUARTS. 


of  the  bitterest  which  can  be  invoked  upon  a  person's  head. 
But,  at  present,  the  fidelity  of  the  Irish  to  the  Stuarts  concerns 
us,  and  a  few  reflections  will  put  it  in  a  strong  but  true  light 
before  us. 

Ever  since  the  restoration  of  Charles  II.,  many  Englishmen 
have  professed  great  reverence  for  the  memory  of  the  "martyr- 
king."  Even  the  subsequent  Revolution  of  1688  left  the  monu- 
ment erected  to  him  untouched.  Many  British  families  con- 
tinued steady  in  their  devotion  to  the  Scotch  line,  and  the  name 
of  Jacobite  was  for  them  a  title  of  honor.  Yet  what  were  their 
sufferings  for  the  cause  of  the  king  during  his  struggle  with  the 
Parliament,  and  after  his  execution  ?  A  few  noblemen  lost  their 
lives  and  estates ;  some  went  into  exile  and  followed  the  fortunes 
of  the  Pretenders  who  tried  to  gain  possession  of  the  throne. 
But  the  bulk  of  the  nation — England — may  be  said  to  have  suf- 
fered nothing  by  the  great  revolution  which  led  to  the  Common- 
wealth. On  the  contrary,  it  is  acknowledged  that  the  adminis- 
tration of  Cromwell  at  least  brought  peace  to  the  country,  and 
raised  the  power  of  Great  Britain  to  a  higher  eminence  in 
Europe  than  it  had  ever  known  before.  As  usual,  the  English 
made  great  profession  of  loyalty,  but,  as  a  rule,  were  particu- 
larly careful  that  no  great  inconvenience  should  come  to  them 
from  it. 

Treated  with  contempt  and  distrust  by  Charles  and  his 
advisers,  so  insulted  in  every  thing  that  was  dear  to  her  that  it 
is  still  a  question  for  historians  if,  in  many  instances,  the  king 
and  the  royalists  did  not  betray  her,  Ireland  alone,  after  having 
taken  her  stand  for  a  whole  decade  of  years  for  God  and  the 
king,  resolved  to  face  destruction  unflinchingly  in  support  of 
what  she  imagined  to  be  a  noble  cause. 

After  the  landing  of  Cromwell,  when  to  any  sensible  man 
there  no  longer  remained  hope  of  serving  the  cause  of  the  king, 
when  the  desire  which  is  natural  to  every  human  heart,  of  saving 
what  can  be  saved,  might,  not  only  without  dishonor,  but  with 
justice  and  right,  have  dictated  the  necessity  of  coming  to  terms 
with  the  parliamentarians,  and  of  abandoning  a  cause  which  was 
hopeless,  "  on  the  4th  of  December,  1649,  Eber  McMahon, 
Bishop  of  Clogher,  a  mere  Irishman  by  name,  by  descent,  by 
enthusiastic  attachment  to  his  country,  exerted  his  great  abili- 
ties to  rouse  his  countrymen  to  a  persevering  resistance  to 
Cromwell,  and  to  unite  all  hearts  and  hands  in  the  support  of 
Ormond's  administration.  .  .  .  All  the  bishops  concurred  in 
his  views,  and  subscribed  a  solemn  declaration  that  they  would, 
to  the  utmost  of  their  power,  forward  his  Majesty's  rights,  and 
the  good  of  the  nation.  .  .  .  Ormond,  at  last,  either  sensible 
that  no  reliance  could  be  placed  on  them,  or  that  the  treachery 
of  Inchiquin's  troops  was,  at  least,  on  the  part  of  the  Irish,  a 


THE  IRISH  AM)  THE  STUARTS. 


273 


fair  ground  of  distrust  and  suspicion  of  the  remainder,  consented 
to  their  removal." — (" Irish  Catholics") 

"  At  last ! "  will  be  the  reader's  exclamation,  while  he  won- 
ders if  another  people  could  be  found  forbearing  enough  to  wait 
eight  years  for  the  adoption  of  such  a  necessary  measure. 

And  the  only  reward  for  their  fidelity  to  King  Charles  I. 
could  under  the  circumstances  be  destruction.  They  waited  with 
resignation  for  the  impending  gloom  to  overshadow  them.  Ter- 
rible moment  for  a  nation,  when  despair  itself  fails  to  nerve  it 
for  further  resistance  and  possible  success!  Such  was  the  posi- 
tion of  the  Irish  at  the  death  of  Charles. 

Who  shall  describe  that  loyalty?  After  Ormond  had  met 
with  the  defeat  he  deserved  in  the  field ;  after  the  cities  had  fallen 
one  after  another  into  the  hands  of  the  destroyer,  who  seldom 
thought  himself  bound  to  observe  the  conditions  of  surrender ; 
after  the  chiefs,  who  might  have  protracted  the  struggle,  had  dis- 
appeared either  by  death  or  exile,  the  doom  of  the  nation  was 
sealed ;  yet  it  shrank  not  from  the  consequences. 

The  barbarities  of  Cromwell  and  his  soldiers  had  depopulated 
large  tracts  of  territory  to  such  an  extent  that  the  troops  march- 
ing through  them  were  compelled  to  carry  provisions  as  through 
a  desert.  The  cattle,  the  only  resource  of  an  agricultural  country, 
had  been  all  consumed  in  a  ten  years'  war.  It  was  reported  that, 
after  every  successful  engagement,  the  republican  general  ordered 
all  the  men  from  the  age  of  sixteen  to  sixty  to  be  slaughtered 
without  mercy,  all  the  boys  from  six  to  sixteen  to  be  deprived 
of  sight,  and  the  women  to  have  a  red-hot  iron  thrust  through 
their  breasts.  Humors  such  as  these,  exaggerated  though  they 
may  be,  testify  at  least  to  the  terror  which  Cromwell  inspired. 
As  for  the  captured  cities,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  wholesale 
massacres  carried  out  therein  by  his  orders.  Of  the  entire  popu- 
lation of  Tredagh  only  thirty  persons  survived,  and  they  were 
condemned  to  the  labor  of  slaves.  Hugh  Peters,  the  chaplain 
of  Fairfax,  wrote  after  this  barbarous  execution :  "  We  are 
masters  of  Tredagh ;  no  enemy  was  spared ;  I  just  come  from 
the  church  where  I  had  gone  to  thank  the  Lord." 

The  same  fate  awaited  Wexford,  and,  later  on,  Drogheda. 
Cromwell,  when  narrating  those  bloody  massacres,  concluded  by 
saying,  "  People  blame  me,  but  it  was  the  will  of  God." 

The  Bible,  the  holy  word  of  God,  misread  and  misunderstood 
by  those  fanatics,  persuaded  them  that  it  would  be  a  crime  not  to 
exterminate  the  Irish,  as  the  Lord  punished  Saul  for  having 
spared  Agag  and  the  chief  of  the  Amalekites.  Whoever  wishes 
for  further  details  of  these  sickening  atrocities,  committed  in  the 
name  of  God,  may  find  them  in  a  multitude  of  histories  of  the 
time,  but  chiefly  in  the  "  Threnodia  "  of  Friar  Morrison. 

Certain  modern  Irish  historians  would  seem  not  to  under- 
18 


274: 


TIIE  IRISH  AXD  THE  STUARTS. 


stand  the  heroism  of  their  own  countrymen.  "  Bitterly,"  saya 
A.  M.  O'Sullivan,  "  did  the  Irish  people  pay  for  their  loyalty  to 
an  English  sovereign.  Unhappily  for  their  worldlv  fortunes,  if 
not  for  their  fame,  they  were  high-spirited  and  unlearing,  where 
pusillanimity  would  certainly  have  been  safety,  and  might  have 
been  only  prudence."  . 

But  the  verdict  of  posterity,  always  a  just  one,  calls  such  a 
high-spirited  and  unfearing  attitude  true  heroism,  and  spurns 
pusillanimity  even  when  it  insures  safety  and  may  be  called  pru- 
dence, if  its  result  is  the  surrender  of  holy  faith  and  Christian 
truth.  Safety  and  prudence  characterized  the  conduct  of  the 
English  nation  under  the  iron  rule  of  Cromwell,  as  under  the 
tyranny  of  the  Tudors.  Can  the  reader  of  history  admire  the 
nation  on  that  account  ?  Who  shall  affirm  that  the  result  of  the 
craven  spirit  of  the  English  was  the  prosperity  which  ensued,  and 
that  of  Irish  heroism  destruction  and  gloom  ?  The  history  of 
either  nation  is  far  from  ended  yet ;  and  bold  would  be  the  man 
who  dare  assert  that  the  prosperity  of  England  is  everlasting, 
and  the  humiliation  of  Ireland  never  to  know  an  end. 

However  that  may  be,  this  at  least  is  undeniable :  the  opinion 
current  of  the  Irish  character  is  demonstrated  to  be  altogether 
an  erroneous  one  bv  the  incontrovertible  facts  cursorily  narrated 
above.  Determination  of  purpose,  adherence  to  conscience  and 
principle,  consistency  of  conduct,  are  terms  all  too  weak  to  convey 
an  idea  of  the  magnanimity  displayed  by  the  people,  and  of  their 
heroic  bearing  throughout  those  stirring  events. 

At  last,  after  a  bloody  struggle  with  Cromwell  and  Ireton,  on 
May  12,  1652,  "the  Leinster  army  of  the  Irish  surrendered  at 
Kilkenny  on  terms  which  were  successively  adopted  by  the  other 
principal  bodies  of  troops,  between  that  time  and  the  September 
following,  when  the  Ulster  forces  came  last  to  composition." 
Then  began  the  real  woes  of  Ireland.  Xever  was  the  ingenuity 
of  man  so  taxed  to  destroy  a  whole  nation  as  in  the  measures 
adopted  by  the  Protector  for  that  purpose.  It  is  necessary  to  pre- 
sent a  brief  sketch  of  them,  since  all  that  the  Irish  suffered  was 
designed  to  punish  them  for  their  attachment  to  their  religion, 
and,  be  it  borne  in  mind,  their  devotion  to  the  lawful  dynasty  of 
the  Stuarts. 

First,  then,  to  render  easy  of  execution  the  stern  and  cruel 
resolve  of  the  new  government,  the  defenders  of  the  nation  were 
not  only  to  be  disarmed,  but  pvt  out  of  the  way.  Hence  Crom- 
well was  gracious  enough  to  consent  that  they  be  permitted  to 
leave  the  country  and  take  service  in  the  armies  of  the  foreign 
powers  then  at  peace  with  the  Commonwealth.  Forty  thousand 
men,  officers  and  soldiers,  adopted  this  desperate  resolution. 

"  Soon  agents  from  the  King  of  Spain,  the  King  of  Poland, 
and  the  Prince  de  Conde,  were  contending  for  the  service  of  the 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


275 


Irish  troops.  Don  Ricardo  White,  in  May,  1652,  shipped  seven 
thousand  in  batches  from  Waterford,  Kinsale,  Galway,  Limerick, 
and  Bantry,  for  the  King  of  Spain.  Colonel  Christopher  Mayo 
got  liberty  in  September  to  beat  his  drums,  to  raise  three  thou- 
sand more  for  the  same  destination.  Lord  Muskerry  took  with 
him  live  thousand  to  the  King  of  Poland.  In  July,  1654,  three 
thousand  five  hundred  went  to  serve  the  Priuce  de  Conde.  Sir 
Walter  Dungan  and  others  got  liberty  to  beat  their  drums  in 
different  garrisons  for  various  destinations." — {Prendergast.) 

To  prove  that  the  desperate  resolution  of  leaving  their  coun- 
try did  not  originate  with  the  Irish,  notwithstanding  what  some 
have  written  to  the  contrary,  it  is  enough  to  remark  that  their 
expatriation  was  made  a  necessary  condition  of  their  surrender 
by  the  new  government.  For  instance,  Lord  Clanrickard, 
according  to  Matthew  O'Connor,  "  deserted  and  surrounded, 
could  obtain  no  terms  for  the  nation,  nor  indeed  for  himself  and 
his  troops,  except  with  the  sad  liberty  of  transportation  to  any 
other  country  in  amity  with  the  Commonwealth." 

To  prove,  if  necessary,  still  further  that  the  expatriation  of 
the  Irish  troops  was  part  of  a  scheme  already  resolved  upon,  it 
is  enough  to  remember  the  indisputable  fact  that  from  the  sur- 
render at  Kilkenny  in  1652,  until  the  open  announcement  in 
the  September  of  1653,  that  the  Parliament  had  assigned  Con- 
naught  for  the  dwelling-place  of  the  Irish  nation,  whither  they 
were  to  be  "transplanted"  before  the  1st  of  May,  1654,  the  va- 
rious garrisons  and  small  armies  which  had  fought  so  gallantly 
for  Ireland  and  the  Stuarts  were  successively  urged  (and  urged 
by  Cromwell  meant  compelled)  to  leave  the  country ;  and  it  was 
only  when  the  last  of  the  Irish  regiments  had  departed  that  the 
doom  of  the  nation  was  boldly  and  clearly  announced. 

But  these  forced  exiles  were  not  restricted  to  the  warrior 
class.  "  The  Lord  Protector,"  says  Prendergast,  "  applied  to 
the  Lord  Henry  Cromwell,  then  major-general  of  the  forces  of 
Ireland,  to  engage  soldiers  ....  and  to  secure  a  thousand 
young  Irish  girls  to  be  shipped  to  Jamaica.  Henry  Cromwell 
answered  that  there  would  be  no  difficulty,  only  that  force  must 
be  used  in  taking  them  ;  and  he  suggested  the  addition  of  fifteen 
hundred  or  two  thousand  boys  of  from  twelve  to  fourteen  years 
of  age.  .  .  .  The  numbers  finally  fixed  were  one  thousand  boys 
and  one  thousand  girls." 

The  total  number  of  children  disposed  of  in  the  same  way, 
from  1652  to  1655,  has  been  variously  estimated  at  from  twenty 
thousand  to  one  hundred  thousand.  The  British  Government  at 
*ast  was  compelled  to  interfere  and  put  a  stop  to  the  infamous 
traffic,  when,  the  mere  Irish  proving  too  scarce,  the  agents  were 
not  sufficiently  discriminating  in  their  choice,  but  shipped  off 
English  children  also  to  the  Tobacco  Islands. 


276  THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 

At  last  the  island  was  left  utterly  without  defenders,  and  suf- 
ficiently depopulated.  It  is  calculated  that,  when  the  last  great 
measure  was  announced  and  put  into  execution,  only  half  a  mill- 
ion of  Irish  people  remained  in  the  country,  the  rest  of  the 
resident  population  being  composed  of  the  Scotch  and  English, 
introduced  by  James  I.,  and  the  soldiers  and  adventurers  let  in 
by  Cromwell. 

The  main  features  of  the  celebrated  "  act  of  settlement "  are 
known  to  all.  It  was  an  act  intended  to  dispose  quietly  of  half 
a  million  of  human  beings,  destined  certainly  in  the  minds  of  its 
projectors  to  disappear  in  due  time,  without  any  great  violence — 
to  die  off — and  leave  the  whole  island  in  the  possession  of  the 
"  godly." 

Connaught  is  famed  as  being  the  wildest  and  most  barren 
province  01  Ireland.  At  the  best,  it  can  support  but  a  scanty 
population.  At  this  time  it  had  been  completely  devastated  by 
a  ten  years'  war  and  by  the  excesses  of  the  parliamentary  forces. 
This  province  then  was  mercifully  granted  to  the  unhappy  Irish 
race ;  it  was  set  apart  as  a  paradise  for  the  wretched  remnant  to 
dwell  in — all  Connaught,  except  a  strip  four  miles  wide  along  the 
sea,  and  a  like  strip  along  the  right  bank  of  the  Shannon.  This 
latter  judicious  provision  was  undoubtedly  intended  to  prevent 
them  from  dwelling  by  the  ocean,  whence  they  might  derive  sub- 
sistence or  assistance,  or  means  of  escape  in  the  event  of  their  ever 
rising  again ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  from  crossing  the  Shan- 
non, on  the  east  side  of  which  their  homes  might  still  be  seen. 
This  cordon  of  four  miles'  width  was  drawn  all  around  what 
was  the  Irish  nation,  and  filled  with  the  fiercest  zealots  of  the 
"  army  of  the  Lord  "  to  keep  guard  over  the  devoted  victims. 

Surely  the  doom  of  the  race  was  at  last  sealed  ! 

But  let  all  justice  be  done  to  the  Protector.  The  act  was  to 
the  effect  that,  on  the  first  day  of  May,  1654,  all  who,  through- 
put the  war,  had  not  displayed  a  constant  good  affection  to  the 
Parliament  of  England  in  opposition  to  Charles  I.,  were  to  be 
removed  with  their  families-  and  servants  to  the  wilds  of  a  poor 
and  desolated  province,  where  certain  lands  were  to  be  given 
them  in  return  for  their  own  estates.  But,  who  of  the  Irish 
could  prove  that  they  had  displayed  a  "  constant  good  affection  " 
to  the  English  Parliament  during  a  ten  years1  war  ?  The  act 
was  nothing  less  than  a  proscription  of  the  whole  nation.  The 
English  of  the  Pale  were  included  among  the  old  natives,  and 
even  a  few  Protestant  royalists,  who  had  taken  up  the  cause  of 
the  fallen  Stuarts.  The  only  exception  made  was  in  favor  of 
"  husbandmen,  ploughmen,  laborers,  artificers,  and  others  of  the 
inferior  sort."  The  English  and  Scotch — constituted  by  this  act 
of  settlement  lords  and  masters  of  the  three  richest  provinces 
of  Ireland — could  not  condescend  to  till  the  soil  with  their  own 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS.  277 

hands  and  attend  to  the  mechanical  arts  required  in  civil  society. 
Those  duties  were  reserved  for  the  Irish  poor.  It  was  hoped 
that,  deprived  of  their  nobility  and  clergy,  they  might  be  turned 
to  auy  account  by  their  new  masters,  and  either  become  good 
Protestants  or  perish  as  slaves.  Herein  mentita  est  iniquitas 
sibi. 

The  heart-rending  details  of  this  outrage  on  humanity  may  be 
seen  in  Mr.  Prendergast's  "  Cromwellian  Settlement."  There 
all  who  read  may  form  some  idea  of  the  extent  of  Ireland's  mis- 
fortunes. 

It  is  a  wonder  which  cannot  fail  to  strike  the  reader,  how, 
after  so  many  precautions  had  been  taken,  not  only  against  the 
further  increase  of  the  race,  but  for  its  speedy  demolition,  how, 
reduced  to  a  bare  half  million,  penned  off  on  a  barren  tract  of 
land,  left  utterly  at  the  mercy  of  its  persecutors,  without  priests, 
without  organization  of  any  kind,  it  not  only  failed  to  perish,  but, 
from  that  time,  has  gone  on,  steadily  increasing,  until  to-day  it 
spreads  out  wide  and  far,  not  only  on  the  island  of  its  birth,  but 
on  the  broad  face  of  two  vast  continents. 

In  the  space  at  our  disposal,  it  is  impossible  to  satisfy  the 
curiosity  of  the  reader  on  this  very  curious  and  interesting  topic. 
A  few  remarks,  however,  may  serve  to  broadly  indicate  the  chief 
causes  of  this  astonishing  fact,  taken  apart  from  the  miraculous 
intervention  of  God  in  their  favor. 

First,  then,  Connaught  became  more  Irish  than  ever,  and  a 
powerful  instrument,  later  on,  to  assist  in  the  resurrection  of  the 
nation.  In  fact,  as  will  soon  be  seen,  it  preserved  life  to  it. 
Again,  the  outcasts,  who  were  allowed  to  remain  in  the  other 
three  provinces  as  servants,  or  slaves,  rather,  were  not  found 
manageable  on  the  score  of  religion  ;  and,  although  new  acts  of 
Parliament  forbade  any  bishop  or  priest  to  remain  in  the  island, 
many  did  remain,  some  of  them  coming  back  from  the  Continent, 
whither  they  had  been  exported,  to  aid  their  unfortunate  coun- 
trymen in  this  their  direst  calamity. 

As  Matthew  O'Connor  rightly  says  :  "  The  ardent  zeal,  the 
fortitude  and  calm  resignation  of  the  Catholic  clergy  during  this 
direful  persecution,  might  stand  a  comparison  with  the  constancy 
of  Christians  during  the  first  ages  of  the  Church.  In  the  season  of 
prosperity  they  may  have  pushed  their  pretensions  too  far  " — this 
is  M.  O'Connor's  private  opinion  of  the  Confederation  of  Kil- 
kenny— "  but,  in  the  hour  of  trial,  they  rose  superior  to  human 
infirmities.  .  .  .  Sooner  than  abandon  their  nocks  altogether, 
they  fled  from  the  communion  of  men,  concealed  themselves  in 
woods  and  caverns,  from  whence  they  issued,  whenever  the  pur- 
suit of  their  enemies  abated,  to  preach  to  the  people,  to  comfort 
them  in  their  afflictions,  to  encourage  them  in  their  trials  ;  .  .  . 
their  haunts  were  objects  of  indefatigable  search  ;  bloodhounds, 


278 


THE  IRISH  AKD  THE  STUARTS. 


the  last  device  of  human  cruelty,  were  employed  for  the  purpose) 
and  the  same  price  was  set  on  the  head  of  a  priest  as  on  that  of 
a  wolf." — {Irish  Catholics.) 

But,  the  expectation  that  the  Irish  of  the  lower  classes,  bereft 
of  their  pastors  as  well  as  of  the  guidance  of  their  chieftains, 
would  fall  a  prey  to  proselytizing  ministers,  and  lose  at  once  their 
nationality  and  their  religion,  was  doomed  to  meet  with  disap- 
pointment. 

Perhaps  the  cause  more  effective  than  all  others  in  pre- 
serving the  Irish  nation  from  disappearing  totally,  came  from 
a  quarter  least  expected,  or  rather  the  most  improbable  and 
wonderful. 

]So  device  seemed  better  calculated  to  succeed  in  Protestant- 
izing Ireland  than  the  decree  of  Parliament  which  set  forth  that 
not  only  the  officers,  but  even  the  common  soldiers  of  the  par- 
liamentary army  should  be  paid  for  their  services,  not  in  money, 
but  in  land ;  and  that  the  estates  of  the  old  owners  should  be 
parcelled  out  and  distributed  among  them  in  payment,  as  well 
as  among  those  who,  in  England,  had  furnished  funds  for  the 
prosecution  of  the  war.  Although  many  soldiers  objected  to 
this  mode  of  compensation,  some  selling  for  a  trifle  the  land 
allotted  to  them  and  returning  to  their  own  country,  the  great 
majority  was  compelled  to  rest  satisfied  with  the  government 
offer,  and  so  resolved  to  settle  down  in  Ireland  and  turn  farmers. 
But  a  serious  difficulty  met  them  :  women  could  not  be  induced 
to  abandon  their  own  country  and  go  to  dwell  in  the  sister  isle, 
while  the  Irish  girls,  being  all  Catholics,  a  decree  of  Parliament 
forbade  the  soldiers  to  marry  them,  unless  they  first  succeeded 
in  converting  them  to  Protestantism.  After  many  vain  attempts, 
doubtless,  the  Cromwellian  soldiers  soon  found  the  impossibility 
of  bringing  the  "  refractory  "  daughters  of  Erin  to  their  way  of 
thinking,  and  could  find  only  one  mode  of  bridging  over  the 
difficulty — to  marry  them  first,  without  requiring  them  to  apos- 
tatize, and  secure  their  prize  after  by  swearing  that  their  wives 
were  the  most  excellent  of  Protestants.  Thus  while  perjury 
became  an  every-day  occurrence,  the  victorious  army  began  to  be 
itself  vanquished  by  a  powerful  enemy  which  it  had  scarcely 
calculated  upon,  and  was  utterly  unprepared  to  meet,  and  finally 
resting  from  its  labors,  enjoyed  the  sweets  of  peace  and  the  fat 
of  the  land. 

But  woman,  once  she  feels  her  power,  is  exacting,  and  in 
course  of  time  the  Cromwellian  soldiers  found  that  further 
sacrifices  still  were  required  of  them,  which  they  had  never 
counted  upon.  Their  wives  could,  by  no  persuasion,  be  induced 
to  speak  English,  so  that,  however  it  might  go  against  the  grain, 
the  husbands  were  compelled  to  learn  Irish  and  speak  it  habit- 
ually as  best  they  might.    Their  difficulties  began  to  multiply 


THE  IRISH  AND  TIIE  STUARTS. 


279 


with  their  children,  when  they  found  them  learning  Irish  in  the 
cradle,  irresistible  in  their  Irish,  wit  and  humor,  and  lisping  the 
prayers  and  reverencing  the  faith  they  had  learned  at  their 
mothers'  knees.  So  that,  from  that  time  to  this,  the  posterity  of 
Cromwell's  "  Ironsides,"  of  such  of  them  at  least  as  remained  in 
Ireland,  have  been  devoted  Catholics  and  ardent  Irishmen. 

The  case  was  otherwise  with  the  chief  officers  of  the  parlia- 
mentary army,  who  had  received  large  estates  and  could  easily 
obtain  wives  from  England.  They  remained  stanch  Protestants, 
and  their  children  have  continued  in  the  religion  received  with 
the  estates  which  came  to  them  from  this  wholesale  confiscation. 
But  the  bulk  of  the  army,  instead  of  helping  to  form  a  Protestant 
middle  class  and  a  Protestant  yeomanry,  has  really  helped  to 
perpetuate  the  sway  of  the  Catholic  religion  in  Ireland,  and  the 
feeling  of  nationality  so  marked  to-day.  This  very  remarkable 
fact  has  been  well  established  and  very  plainly  set  forth,  a  few 
years  ago,  by  eminent  English  reviewers. 

Meanwhile,  Ireland  was  a  prey  to  all  the  evils  which  can 
afflict  a  nation.  Pestilence  was  added  to  the  ravages  of  war 
and  the  woes  of  transplantation,  and  it  raged  alike  among  the  con- 


reads  to-day  like  an  exaggerated  lament,  the  burden  of  which  was 
drawn  from  a  vivid  imagination.  Yet  can  there  be  little  doubt 
that  it  scarcely  presented  the  whole  truth ;  an  exact  reproduc- 
tion of  all  the  heart-rending  scenes  then  daily  enacted  in  the 
unfortunate  island  would  prove  a  tale  as  moving  as  ever  har- 
rowed the  pitying  heart  of  a  reader. 

And  all  this  suffering  was  the  direct  consequence  of  two 
things — the  attachment  of  the  Irish  to  the  Catholic  religion, 
and  their  devotion  to  the  Stuart  dynasty.  Modern  historians, 
in  considering  all  the  circumstances,  express  themselves  unable 
to  understand  the  constancy  of  this  people's  affection  for  a  line 
of  kings  from  whom  they  had  invariably  experienced,  not  only 
neglect,  but  positive  opposition,  if  not  treachery.  In  their  opin- 
ion, only  the  strangest  obliquity  of  judgment  can  explain  such 
infatuation.  Some  call  it  stupidity ;  but  the  Irish  people  have 
never  been  taxed  with  that.  Even  in  the  humblest  ranks  of  life 
among  them,  there  exists,  not  only  humor,  but  a  keenness  of 
perception,  and  at  times  an  extraordinary  good  sense,  which  is 
quick  to  detect  motives,  and  find  out  what  is  uppermost  in 
the  minds  of  others. 

There  is  but  one  reading  of  the  riddle,  consistent  with  the 
whole  character  of  the  people  :  they  clung  to  the  Stuarts  because 
they  were  obedient  to  the  precepts  and  duties  of  religion,  and 
labored  under  the  belief,  however  mistaken,  that  from  the  Stu- 
arts alone  could  they  hope  for  any  thing  like  freedom.  Their 
spiritual  rulers  had  insisted  on  the  duty  of  sustaining  at  all 


querors  and  the  conquered. 


280 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


hazard  the  legitimate  authority  of  the  king,  and  they  were  firmly 

convinced  that  they  could  expect  from  no  other  a  relaxation  of 
the  religious  penai  statutes  imposed  on  them  by  their  enemies. 
The  more  frequent  grew  their  disappointments  in  the  measures 
adopted  by  the  sovereigns  on  whom  they  had  set  their  hopes, 
the  more  firmly  were  they  convinced  that  their  intentions  were 
good,  but  rendered  futile  by  the  men  who  surrounded  and 
coerced  them. 

Religion  can  alone  explain  this  singular  affection  of  the  Irish 
people  for  a  race  which,  in  reality,  has  caused  the  greatest  of 
their  misfortunes. 

The  subsequent  events  of  this  strange  history  are  in  perfect 
keeping  with  those  preceding.  A  few  words  will  suffice  to 
sketch  them. 

On  the  death  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  his  son  Richard,  being 
unable  and  indeed  unwilling  to  remain  at  the  head  of  the 
English  state,  the  nation,  tired  of  the  iron  rule  of  the  Protector, 
fearful  certainly  of  anarchy,  and  preferring  the  conservative 
measures  of  monarchy  to  the  ever-changing  revolutions  of  a 
commonwealth,  recalled  the  son  of  Charles  I.  to  the  throne. 

But  a  kind  of  bargain  had  been  struck  by  him  with  those 
who  disposed  of  the  crown ;  and  he  undertook  and  promised  to 
disturb  as  little  as  possible  the  vested  interests  created  by  the 
revolution,  that  is  to  say,  he  pledged  himself  to  let  the  settle- 
ment of  property  remain  as  he  found  it.  In  England  that 
promise  was  productive  of  little  mischief  to  the  nation  at  large, 
though  fatal  to  the  not  very  numerous  families  who  had  been 
deprived  of  their  estates  by  the  Parliament.  But,  in  Ireland,  it 
was  a  very  different  matter  ;  for  there  the  interests  of  the  whole 
nation  were  ousted  to  make  room  for  these  "  vested  interests " 
of  proprietors  of  scarcely  ten  years'  standing. 

The  Irish  nobility  and  gentry,  at  first  unaware  of  the  exist- 
ence of  this  bargain,  were  in  joyful  expectation  that  right  would 
at  last  be  done  them,  as  it  was  for  loyalty  to  the  father  of  the 
new  king  that  they  had  been  robbed  of  all  their  possessions. 
They  were  soon  undeceived.  To  their  surprise,  they  learned 
that  the  speculators,  army-officers,  and  soldiers  already  in  pos- 
session of  their  estates,  were  not  to  be  disturbed,  short  as  the 
possession  had  been  ;  and  that  only  such  lands  as  were  yet 
unappropriated  should  be  returned  to  their  rightful  owners, 
provided  only  they  were  not  papists,  or  could  prove  that  they 
had  been  "  innocent  papists." 

The  consequences  of  this  bargain  are  clear.  The  Irish  of 
the  old  native  race  who  had  been,  as  now  appeared,  so  foolishly 
ardent  in  their  loyalty  to  the  throne,  were  to  be  abandoned  to 
the  fate  to  which  Cromwell  had  consigned  them,  and  could  expect 
to  recover  nothing  of  what  they  had  so  nobly  lost.    So  flagrant- 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


281 


ly  unjust  was  the  whole  proceeding,  that  after  a  time  many 
Englishmen  even  saw  the  injustice  of  the  decision,  and  lifted  up 
their  voices  in  defence  of  the  Irish  Catholics  who  alone  could 
hope  for  nothing  from  the  restoration  of  royalty.  To  put  a  stop 
to  this,  the  infamous  "Oates"  fabrication  was  brought  forward, 
which  destroyed  a  number  of  English  Catholic  families  and 
stifled  the  voice  of  humanity  in  its  etforts  to  befriend  the  Irish 
race ;  and  so  sudden,  universal,  and  lasting,  was  the  effect  of  this 
plot  in  closing  the  eyes  of  all  to  the  claims  of  the  Irish,  that 
when  its  chief  promoter,  Shaftesbury,  was  dragged  to  the  Tower 
and  there  imprisoned  as  a  miscreant,  and  Oates  himself  suffered 
a  punishment  too  mild  for  his  villany,  nevertheless  no  one 
thought  of  again  taking  up  the  cause  of  the  Irish  natives. 

It  is  almost  impossible  in  these  days  to  realize  what  has  oc- 
cupied our  attention  in  this  chapter.  The  unparalleled  act  of 
spoliation  by  which  four-fifths  of  the  Irish  nation  were  deprived 
of  their  property  by  Cromwell  because  of  their  devotion  to 
Charles  L,  for  the  alleged  reason  that  they  could  not  prove  a  con- 
stant good  affection  for  the  English  regicide  Parliament,  that 
spoliation  was  ratified  by  the  son  of  Charles  within  a  few  years 
after  the  rightful  owners,  who  had  sacrificed  their  property  for 
the  sake  of  his  father,  had  been  dispossessed,  while  the  parliamen- 
tarians, who  by  force  of  arms  had  broken  down  the  power  of 
Charles  and  enabled  the  members  of  the  Long  Parliament  to  try 
their  king  and  bring  him  to  the  block,  those  very  soldiers  and 
officers  were  left  in  possession  of  their  ill-gotten  plunder,  at  a 
time  when  many  of  the  owners  were  only  a  few  miles  away  in 
Connaught,  or  even  inhabiting  the  out-houses  of  their  own  man- 
sions, and  tilling  the  soil  as  menial  servants  of  Cromwell's 
troopers. 

The  case,  apparently  similar,  which  occurred  in  after-years,  of 
the  French  emigrant  nobility,  cannot  be  compared  with  the 
result  of  this  strange  concession  of  Charles  II.  In  fact,  it  may 
be  said  that  the  spoliations  of  1792-'93  in  France  would 
probably  never  have  taken  place  but  for  the  successful  example 
held  up  to  the  eyes  of  the  legislators  of  the  French  Republic  by 
the  English  Revolution. 

As  for  the  share  which  Charles  II.  himself  bore  in  the  meas- 
ure, it  is  best  told  by  the  fact  that  the  work  of  spoliation  was  car- 
ried on  so  vigorously  during  the  reign  of  the  "  merry  monarch, " 
that  when  a  few  years  later  William  of  Orange  came  to  the 
throne  there  was  no  land  left  for  him  to  dispose  of  among  his 
followers  save  the  last  million  of  acres.  All  the  rest  had  been 
portioned  off.  Well  might  Dr.  Madden  say  :  "  The  whole  of  Ire- 
land has  been  so  thoroughly  confiscated  that  the  only  exception 
was  that  of  five  or  six  families  of  English  blood,  some  of  whom 
had  been  attainted  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  but  recovered 


282 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUAETS. 


their  possessions  before  Tyrone's  rebellion,  and  had  the  good  for- 
tune to  escape  the  pillage  of  the  English  republic  inflicted  by 
Cromwell ;  and  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  the  island  has  been 
confiscated  twice,  or  perhaps  thrice,  in  the  course  of  a  century. 
The  situation,  therefore,  of  the  Irish  nation  at  the  revolution, 
stands  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  the  inhabited  world." 

A  few  words  will  suffice  to  show  what  the  Irish  owe  to  the 
Stuarts.  James  I.  established  a  colonv  on  Irish  soil,  which  had 
nothing  m  common  with  the  native  inhabitants,  and  which,  ow- 
ing to  the  altered  state  of  affairs  in  the  island,  could  never  hope 
to  coalesce  with  them.  All  races  of  men,  which  had  landed  on 
the  island  and  endeavored  to  conquer  it,  had  gradually  yielded 
to  the  sociability  of  the  Irish  nature  and  ended  by  adopting  the 
native  manners,  disposition,  and  language.  The  Protestant  col- 
ony of  Ulster  has  never  showed  the  least  inclination  to  follow 
these  repeated  examples,  except  partially  and  for  a  short  time  at 
the  end  of  the  last  century,  on  the  occasion  of  the  insurrection 
of  1798.  But  soon  after,  with  a  few  honorable  exceptions,  the 
same  colony  became  more  bitter  than  ever  against  every  thing 
Irish,  boasted  of  being  only  Irish-Scotch,  and,  under  the  name  of 
Orangemen,  adopted  the  most  revolting  principles  against  the 
other  inhabitants  of  the  common  soil. 

At  all  times,  except  during  the  brief  interval  of  the  civil  war 
of  '98,  the  Ulster  colony  has  looked  to  England  for  its  support 
against  its  "  enemies,"  the  Catholics  ;  and,  in  order  to  gain  that 
support,  it  has  surrendered  every  prerogative  dear  to  the  lovers 
of  freedom ;  as  far  as  possible  it  subjected  the  Irish  Parliament, 
as  long  as  such  existed,  to  that  of  England ;  by  packing  juries, 
it  has  contributed  to  render  that  so  much-vaunted  free  institu- 
tion, the  British  jury,  a  mockery ;  it  has  helped  materially  to 
cripple  native  trade  and  industry,  and  ruined  the  country  com- 
mercially to  please  England  ;  in  all  which  it  may  be  said  to  have 
proved  itself  more  English  than  the  English. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  blessings  imported  into  the  unfortunate 
country  with  the  colony  of  James  I. ;  so  that  what  the  Plantage- 
nets  and  Lan casters  could  never  effect,  what  the  Tudors  did  not 
even  attempt,  that  did  the  Stuarts ;  they  divided  the  island  into 
two  permanent  camps  opposed  among  themselves,  always  at  war 
more  or  less,  and  altogether  irreconcilable  even  after  many  gen- 
erations have  been  born,  passed  away,  and  died,  in  contact  one 
with  the  other. 

The  effect  of  that  lone:  and  seemingly  eternal  division  is  cer- 
tainly  far  more  deplorable  than  were  ever  the  insane  feuds  of  the 
clans,  with  all  their  petty  warfare  and  bloody  conflicts. 

But  to  come  to  the  grand  spoliation,  which  throws  all  previous 
ones  into  the  shade,  and  is  enough  in  itself  to  set  the  English  na- 
tion under  Cromwell  on  a  par  with  the  most  devastating  hordes 


THE  IRISn  AND  TIIE  STUARTS. 


283 


that  ever  set  sail  on  a  voyage  of  piracy  under  the  sea-kongs  of 
old.  The  measure  had  the  merit  at  least  of  being  radical  and 
thorough.  By  a  single  act  of  Parliament  three  whole  provinces, 
the  richest  in  the  island,  were  confiscated  at  once  and  without 
more  ado ;  and,  if  the  poorest  and  most  desolate  province  was 
still  left  to  the  Irish,  it  was  evidently  in  the  minds  of  the  humane 
legislators  intended  as  a  temporary  expedient  to  get  rid  of  a 
wretched  half-million  of  people.  It  threw  a  show  of  humanity 
over  the  measure.  They  might  have  driven  them  at  once  into 
the  sea ;  but  it  looked  better  to  pen  them  off  like  so  many  cattle 
on  a  bleak  land,  to  encircle  them  with  a  cordon  of  bitter  foes, 
and,  in  the  devout  hope  that  so  it  would  speedily  come  to  pass, 
there  let  them  starve  and  die  out  at  their  ease. 

Strange  to  say,  this  spoliation  must  be  laid  altogether  at  the 
door  of  the  Stuarts.  Every-  writer  on  Irish  history  has  been 
careful  to  note  how  many  hundreds  of  thousands  or  millions  of 
acres  were  successively  confiscated  by  Henry  YIII.,  Edward  VI., 
Mary,  Elizabeth,  James  L,  and  afterward  William  of  Orange. 
But  no  one  has  ever  been  able  to  ascertain  how  much  Cromwell 
appropriated  except  by  coming  to  the  decisions  of  the  Court  of 
Claims  under  Charles  II.  So  that  this  monarch  has  literally  kept 
the  books  for  the  robbing  firm,  Cromwell  and  Parliament,  and 
given  the  only  legal  title  accompanied  with  vouchers,  which  the 
Cromwellian  adventurers  and  "  undertakers"  ever  received. 

It  is  said,  in  a  general  way,  that  the  Protector  took  three  en- 
tire provinces,  and  this  statement  is  certainly  true  in  the  main. 
But,  until  the  establishment  of  the  Court  of  Claims  at  the  Resto- 
ration, there  was  really  nothing  sure  and  finally  settled,  so  that 
many  of  the  decisions  of  the  Loughrea  commissioners  and  Ath- 
lone  judges  of  claims,  under  the  Commonwealth,  might  have 
been  reversed,  and  were  expected  to  be  reversed  by  the  new 
Court  of  Claims  established  by  Charles  II.,  although  that  mon- 
arch had  pledged  himself  to  disturb  as  little  as  possible  the 
"  vested  interests  "  created  by  the  revolution. 

The  Protector's  reign  lasted  only  nine  years,  and  the  legal 
and  judicial  operations  required  by  the  Cromwellian  act  of  settle- 
ment began  several  years  subsequently  to  his  taking  in  his  hands 
the  reins  of  government,  thus  supposing  many  years  of  investi- 
gation, discussion,  and  hearing  of  cases,  with  the  possibility  of 
appeal  and  reversal  of  judgment,  before  a  final  decision  could  be 
arrived  at.  So  that  the  Restoration  came  about  while  a  multi- 
tude of  those  questions  were  still  pending,  and  it  was  only  nat- 
ural to  expect  that,  with  the  new  order,  many  of  them  might 
have  been  stopped,  many  decisions  reversed,  since  they  had  been 
invariably  given  in  favor  of  a  revolution  now  reprobated. 

Had  Charles  II.  only  felt  the  slightest  inclination  to  serve  his 
••eal  friends  and  the  defenders  of  his  father,  the  Irish,  how  many 


2S4 


TIIE  IPJSn  AXD  THE  STUARTS. 


of  those  Cromwellian  measures  would  have  remained  ?  Let  a 
skilful  and  cautious  lawyer,  gifted  with  ready  pen  and  glib 
tongue,  and  accustomed  to  such  intricate  questions,  respond. 
Even  granting  that  the  king  had  been  compelled  to  promise  not 
to  disturb  the  "  vested  interests,"  such  promise  could  only  be 
held  to  refer  to  vested  interests  which  stood  well-grounded,  fixed, 
decided,  clear,  and  without  any  doubt  or  counter-claim  of  what- 
ever description.  With  a  little  trouble,  and  a  judicious  use  of 
the  royal  prerogative,  it  is  very  safe  to  assert  that  the  Cromwell- 
ian act  of  settlement  would  have  been  reduced  to  slender  pro- 
portions, and  assumed  a  very  different  aspect  from  that  which  it 
now  assumes  in  history. 

For,  to  come  to  the  point,  in  the  enumeration  of  the  various 
confiscations  in  Ireland,  given  by  Dr.  Madden,  in  his  "  Connec- 
tion," etc.,  that  of  Cromwell  is  laid  entirely  at  the  door  of  Charles 
II.,  under  the  following  heading :  "  Set  out  by  the  Court  of 
Claims  at  the  Rest  oration,  seven  million  eight  hundred  thousand 
acres."  Thus,  nearly  eight  million  acres  of  Irish  soil  have  actu- 
ally— that  is  to  say,  legally  and  without  hope  of  reversal  of  sen- 
tence— passed  from  the  hands  of  the  rightful  owners  into  those  of 
foreign  adventurers  and  robbers  under  the  reign  of  the  second 
Charles  Stuart.  And,  as  the  whole  island  contains  only  about 
eleven  million  five  hundred  thousand  acres,  it  is  clear  that  the 
three  entire  provinces  were  included  in  that  act  of  spoliation. 

In  his  speech  on  the  "  Union,"  which  he  so  strongly  advo- 
cated in  1800,  Lord  Clare  puts  the  case  in  the  strongest  and 
clearest  light :  "  I  wish  gentlemen,  who  call  themselves  the  digni- 
fied and  independent  Irish  nation,  to  know  that  seven  million 
eight  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land  were  set  out,  under  the  au- 
thority of  this  act — passed  under  Charles  II. — to  a  motley  crew 
of  English  adventurers,  civil  and  military,  nearly  to  the  total  ex- 
clusion of  the  old  inhabitants  of  the  island,  many  of  whom,  who 
were  innocent  of  the  rebellion,  lost  their  inheritance,  as  well  for 
the  difficulties  imposed  upon  them  by  the  Court  of  Claims,  in 
the  proofs  required  of  their  innocency,  as  for  a  deficiency  in  the 
fund  to  English  adventurers,  arising  principally  from  a  profuse 

frant  made  by  the  crown  to  the  Duke  of  York,"  afterward 
ames  II. 

Charles  II.,  therefore,  took  upon  himself  to  be,  in  his  own 
person,  the  executor  of  the  Cromwellian  settlement,  and  we  have 
seen  how  far  his  duties  extended.  In  the  last  revolution,  of  1688, 
William  of  Orange  had  only  left  a  poor  fragment  of  a  million  of 
acres  wherewith  to  complete  the  extensive  operations  of  James 
I.  and  Charles  II. 

And  still,  even  at  the  death  of  this  last-mentioned  monarch, 
the  Irish  displayed  toward  his  brother,  James  EL,  an  affection  to 
the  extent  of  resolving  to  perish  with  the  dynasty  to  which  he 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


285 


belonged.  This  time,  however,  their  attachment  cannot  be  said 
to  have  been  altogether  misplaced,  as  far  as  the  sentiments  and 
designs  of  the  new  king  in  their  regard  went.  James  had  the 
honest  desire  of  granting  to  them,  as  to  all  his  subjects,  real 
liberty  of  conscience.  He  was  the  first  of  the  English  monarchs 
to  proclaim  what  in  modern  times  is  called  "  religious  freedom," 
and  he  lost  his  crown  merely  because  the  majority  of  his  subjects 
were  determined  to  preserve  intact  to  themselves  the  preponder- 
ance they  had  gained  over  the  Catholics,  and  the  right  they  had 
already  made  such  good  use  of  for  so  long  a  time,  of  oppressing 
them  at  will. 

Few  pages  of  Irish  history  are  so  full  of  interest  as  the  three 
years'  war  which  ended  with  the  surrender  of  Limerick.  Ath- 
lone,  Aughrim,  Limerick,  even  the  Boyne,  are  glorious  fields  for 
the  Irish  race,  though  they  culminated  in  defeat.  Often  was  it 
the  sheer  courage  of  despair  which  filled  the  heart  and  nerved 
the  arm  of  those  heroic  Irish  warriors.  To  describe  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  that  short  but  gigantic  struggle  would  be  to  overstep 
our  limits.  A  general  remark,  however,  which  seems  to  have 
escaped  the  observation  of  many  writers,  is  pertinent  to  the  sub- 
ject in  hand.  At  the  Boyne,  where  the  campaign  began,  the 
Irish  army  found  itself  in  the  midst  of  the  country  which  had 
been  stripped  of  its  native  inhabitants  by  Cromwell  and,  it  may 
be  said,  by  Charles  II.  Therefore  was  the  contest  short,  because, 
after  the  first  reverse,  no  resistance  could  come  from  the  sur- 
rounding districts.  This  was  doubtless  the  reason  why  many 
officers  advised  James,  at  the  opening  of  the  campaign,  to  fall 
back  on  the  line  of  the  Shannon. 

It  was  when  James  gave  up  the  contest  and  fled  to  France, 
that  the  war  really  began  with  the  sie^e  of  Athlone,  before 
whose  walls  the  victors  of  the  Boyne  suftered  a  repulse.  After 
this,  the  entire  war  was  confined  to  the  frontiers  of  Con  naught 
from  north  to  south  ;  for  there  was  the  Irish  nation  enclosed  and 
packed  together.  If  Louis  XIY.,  in  place  of  sending  officers  and 
a  few  troops,  had  dispatched  arms  and  munitions  of  war  in  quan- 
tity sufficient,  it  is  now  evident  that  a  hundred  thousand  men 
would  have  straightway  started  up  from  the  wilds  of  desolate 
Connaught  to  save  Ireland  to  James,  and,  in  all  probability, 
England  also,  at  the  time  dissatisfied  with  the  uncouth  manners 
of  the  usurper  and  the  greed  of  his  Dutch  followers. 

One  thing  only  is  certain  :  James  may  have  failed  to  perse- 
vere a  sufficient  time  at  the  head  of  his  Irish  subjects ;  Louis 
may  have  failed  to  see  and  avail  himself  of  the  right  moment  of 
success ;  but  the  Irish,  all  that  was  left  of  them,  failed  in  none 
of  the  heroic  qualities  of  the  soldier,  and  in  falling  then  forever, 
to  all  seeming,  they  fell  as  soldiers  care  to  fall  when  struggle  is 
nseless,  with  honor  saved  and  duty  nobly  done. 


2S6 


TIIE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


Even  then  their  resistance  would  have  been  prolonged  to  the 
last  had  not  honorable  and  fair  conditions  been  tendered  them 
at  Limerick,  only  to  be  shamefully  violated  when  the  capitula- 
tion was  effected. 

The  conditions  of  that  surrender  were,  that  they  should 
obtain  for  themselves  and  their  countrymen  the  great  boon  of 
religious  liberty,  security  for  all  who  had  served  King  James,  by 
merely  taking  an  oath  of  future  allegiance  to  William  and 
Mary,  and  the  privilege  to  every  nobleman  and  gentleman  en- 
gaged in  the  war  to  possess  and  carry  arms  for  the  protection  of 
their  persons. 

Allured  by  these  solemn  engagements  of  the  enemy,  believing 
in  the  promise  and  plighted  word  of  a  king  and  a  soldier,  the  Irish 
consented  to  surrender  their  last  stronghold.  The  world  knows 
how  faithfully  the  solemn  engagement,  the  royal  promise,  the 
soldier's  word,  was  kept.  Sarsfield  sailed  away  with  the  newly- 
arrived  French  fleet,  containing  nearly  twenty  thousand  men,  and 
the  Irish  were  left  completely  at  the  mercy  of  their  masters.  Then 
began  the  century  of  gloom  which  will  be  described  in  the  next 
chapter. 

But,  before  closing  the  present,  the  reader  will  pardon  a  few 
reflections  on  the  strange  fascination  which  the  Stuart  name 
possessed  for  the  Irish,  the  spell  it  held  over  them,  a  spell  which 
lasted  until  the  surrender  of  Limerick,  where  it  was  at  last 
broken,  never  to  weave  its  magic  meshes  again  between  them 
and  the  person  or  the  cause  of  any  British  king  or  government. 
Irish  faith  in  English  honor  of  any  shape  or  form  fell  with 
Limerick,  never  to  be  built  up  again. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  pretend,  with  Dr.  Madden,  that  Queen 
Anne,  the  last  of  the  throned  Stuarts,  enjoyed  the  allegiance  of  her 
Irish  subjects.  The  frightful  penal  laws  enacted  during  her  reign 
were  scarcely  calculated  to  evoke  such  a  feeling,  and,  if  they  did 
not  organize  for  open  resistance  to  such  tyranny  just  then,  it 
was  owing  to  the  sheer  impossibility  and  despair  of  the  success 
of  such  a  movement.  Bereft  of  all  means  whereby  a  nation  can 
manifest  its  will,  there  appeared  to  be  no  will  left  to  them, 
beyond  the  abject  submission  and  apathetic  resignation  of  the 
Eastern  slave.  Numerous  secret  societies  soon  began  to  spring  up 
among  them,  however,  showing  clearly  enough  that  the  native 
determination  never  to  yield  was  as  strong  in  them  as  ever  ;  but 
the  illusion,  which  had  so  long  borne  them  up,  that  in  the  Stuart 
line  lay  their  last  hope  as  a  nation,  was  gone  forever,  and  no 
longer  inspired  them  with  that  heroic  feeling  which  had  ennobled 
their  last  struggle. 

We  hope  that  the  reader  has  seen  with  us  that  the  secret  of 
that  heroism  was  their  religion.  All  who  have  written  on  this 
Eventful  period  seem  to  have  failed  to  take  into  sufficient  account 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


287 


this  feeling,  which  is  always  uppermost  in  the  Irish  heart, 
and  confess  themselves  unable  to  explain  this  singular  hallu 
cination. 

But,  as  we  have  seen,  too  cursorily  perhaps,  it  was  the  re 
membrance  of  his  Catholic  mother,  Mary  of  Scotland,  whict 
gave  rise  to  their  chief  reason  for  hope  on  the  accession  of 
James  I. ;  it  was  the  supposed  good  disposition  of  his  son 
Charles,  and,  further  still,  the  knowledge  of  the  Catholic  piety  of 
that  monarch's  queen,  Henrietta,  which  revived  those  hopes 
when  James  died.  Then  the  Confederation  of  Kilkenny,  headed 
by  their  bishops  and  a  nuncio  of  the  Holy  See,  induced  them  to 
continue  firm  in  their  allegiance  to  the  king.  ITnder  Charles  II. 
they  suffered;  they  had  no  cause  to  fight  for  him,  though,  had 
there  been,  it  is  certain  that  they  would  have  embraced  it,  as 
under  his  rule  they  really  enjoyed  a  kind  of  religious  liberty,  in 
spite  of  existing  laws.  But  for  James  II.  their  feeling  rose  into 
enthusiasm.  In  him  they  beheld  a  sincere  Catholic,  suffering  for 
his  religion  as  they  themselves  suffered ;  and  this  fact  alone 
explains  their  wonderful  attachment  to  his  cause,  and  the  invin- 
cible determination  to  fall  with  him  or  rise  again  with  the  rising 
of  his  power. 

It  is  doubtful  if,  in  the  whole  course  of  their  history,  they 
ever  displayed  a  greater  attachment  to  their  religion  than  they 
did  under  the  Stuarts.  The  fearful  trials  they  were  subjected 
to  by  Cromwell  were  as  a  fierce  furnace-blast  threatening  to 
consume  them  utterly,  but  without  eliciting  from  them  a  sign 
of  regret  for  having  taken  their  stand  boldly  for  God  and  the 
king,  in  the  face  of  the  extremities  which  they  braved  in  conse- 
quence. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  at  this  very  time  of  the  apparent  de- 
struction of  all  their  hopes,  God  was  preparing  the  way  for  the 
events  which  were  to  lead  up  to  their  future  resurrection.  The 
fact  previously  touched  upon  of  the  uprising  of  the  true  Irish 
nation,  after  the  destruction  of  clanship,  came  more  and  more 
into  prominence,  and  grew  silently  under  the  subsequent  period 
of  gloom.  Day  by  day  they  became  more  united,  more  firm  in 
their  resolve  never  to  coalesce  with  their  persecutors,  and  never 
to  relinquish  their  great  distinctive  badge — the  faith.  It  parted 
them  off  from  their  oppressors  by  an  impassable  line ;  and,  as 
their  utter  destruction  was  impossible,  their  existence  as  a  nation, 
apart  from  those  who  deprived  them  of  all  that  was  theirs,  grew 
more  marked  than  ever,  and  was  brought  into  stronger  relief. 

In  their  very  attachment  to  the  Stuarts  lies  a  proof  of  this 
last  remark.  For  there  is  in  their  support  of  that  dvnasty  a  fact 
which  deserves  to  be  set  forth :  the  unanimity  of  the  feeling 
which  sprung  up  simultaneously  in  their  hearts,  which  was  only 
intensified  by  difficulties  and  misfortunes,  which  survived  even 


288 


THE  IRISH  AKD  THE  STUARTS, 


the  Cromwellian  calamity,  and  which  was  extinguished  in  all,  as 
suddenly,  simultaneously,  and  unaccountably,  as  it  rose. 

Never  before,  as  never  after,  did  the  Irish  show  a  sign  of 
true  allegiance  to  the  British  crown  ;  but,  treated  as  aliens  and 
enemies,  they  felt  themselves  at  liberty  to  acknowledge  or  not 
the  English  monarchs  as  they  chose.  On  a  sudden,  a  silent, 
spontaneous  feeling  rises  through  the  whole  nation  in  favor  of  a 
new  line  of  British  sovereigns.  This  feeling  was  as  utterly  un- 
expected as  it  was  universal.  It  was  emphatically  what  is  now 
called  public  opinion.  Yet  no  meetings  of  citizens  had  been 
convoked,  no  books  or  pamphlets  written,  no  periodical  reviews 
or  newspapers  had  advocated  it ;  none  of  those  means  now  used 
for  the  manufacture  of  public  opinion  were  known  or  called  into 
play  at  the  time.  Nevertheless,  not  only  every  one  of  the  noble- 
men remaining  in  the  country,  every  individual  of  the  educated 
classes,  as  they  are  now  called — and  they  were  by  no  means  few 
— every  well-to-do  farmer  and  grazier,  but  even  the  humblest 
cottagers,  the  poorest  artisans  and  laborers,  are  at  once  so  capti- 
vated by  the  new  feeling,  that  disappointment  following  disap- 
pointment, ingratitude  succeeded  by  greater  ingratitude,  calamity 
neaped  upon  calamity,  all  possible  obstacles  and  discouraging 
circumstances  cannot  dissipate  the  fatal  illusion,  and  turn  into 
other  and  worthier  channels  the  heroic  efforts  of  the  people. 
Surely  this  is  public  opinion,  if  such  a  thing  as  public  opinion 
exists. 

But  public  opinion  cannot  exist  without  a  nation  from  which 
to  spring,  and,  in  proportion  as  it  is  strong  or  weak,  so  is  the 
nation  compact  and  efficient  or  feeble.  It  is  therefore  an  error 
to  suppose  that  the  Irish  nation  ended  with  the  destruction  of 
clanship.  Not  only  did  it  subsist,  but  it  really  sprang  from  that 
destruction  into  new  life  and  new  activity,  under  Henry  VIII.  : 
an  activity  and  a  life  peculiar  to  the  Irish  people.  Tnere  was 
nothing  to  compare  with  it  in  any  other  race.  Nor  was  the  fact 
exemplified  only  in  the  single  instance  now  under  consideration. 
It  may  be  said  that  it  has  ever  since  formed  a  characteristic  of 
them,  and  is  still  frequently  manifested  in  the  same  strange 
and  unaccountable  manner.  Among  other  people,  when  a  fa<ct 
that  calls  forth  general  attention  is  reported,  the  opinions  with 
regard  to  it  diner  with  the  individuals  who  discuss  it,  and  the 
expressions  of  their  opinions  are  as  various  almost  as  their  faces  ; 
but  among  Irishmen,  as  a  rule,  the  same  fact,  if  of  great  impor- 
tance, will  be  judged  on  alike  by  all ;  all  are  unanimous  to 
denounce  or  admire  it ;  there  is  no  difference  of  opinion  among 
them ;  and  yet,  even  to-day,  they  have,  comparatively  speaking, 
few  newspapers  and  reviews  whereby  to  form  their  opinions  on 
men  and  things.  They  do  not  seem  to  require  the  common 
helps  of  ordinary  people  to  think,  reflect,  judge,  and  pronounce  ■ 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


2S9 


a  sort  of  electric  current  runs  through  the  whole  mass,  and  the 
first  expression  on  the  lips  of  any  one  of  them  on  a  subject  of 
importance  meets  with  an  immediate  response  in  the  minds 
of  all  the  rest,  because  all  have  been  impressed  by  it  in  like 
manner. 

Individual  exceptions,  of  course,  are  to  be  found ;  cavillers 
might  quote  facts  to  prove  that  this  view  is  unfounded  ;  never- 
theless any  one  acquainted  with  this  remarkable  people  will 
know  that  such  is  the  case  in  general,  and  that  few  things  are 
more  remarkable  among  them,  notwithstanding  the  universal  rep- 
utation they  enjoy  for  constant  quarrelling  and  internal  feuds. 

The  difficulty  which  may  be  raised  by  such  cavillers  can  be 
satisfactorily  explained.  On  matters  of  faith,  of  religion,  the 
Irish  are  unanimous ;  and  this  fact  is  rendered  the  more  striking 
by  the  acknowledgment  that  in  matters  of  minor  importance  in 
life,  their  feelings  are  as  various  and  changeable  as  a  most  impul- 
sive nature  can  make  them. 

With  regard  to  the  first  point,  no  two  opinions  are  to  be 
found  among  them.  What  the  humblest  and  rudest  will 
express  humorously,  rudely  if  you  will,  the  more  refined  will 
only  echo  in  language  better  attuned  to  the  educated  ear. 

This  unanimity  of  feeling  in  the  Irish  people,  as  displayed  in 
their  attachment  to  the  Stuart  dynasty,  wrought  them  up  on  one 
occasion  at  least  to  a  pitch  of  real  heroism,  because  religion,  as 
was  shown,  lay  at  the  bottom  of  it.  The  whole  history  of  the 
nation  bears  out  this  solemn  fact :  that  religion  constitutes  with 
them  the  strongest  as  the  holiest  feeling  of  all.  What  others 
fondly  believe,  they  hww  to  be  a  fact,  that  their  religion  is  inde- 
structible and  must  triumph  in  the  long-run,  and  that  the 
triumph  of  their  nation  is  one  with  the  triumph  of  their  religion. 
Can  a  nobler  motive  than  this  fire  the  human  heart  \  Where  the 
wonder,  then,  that  souls,  ever  swayed  by  such  ennobling  emo- 
tions, can  be  lifted  up  to  do  deeds  gigantic  and  heroic  ? 

One  other  circumstance  still  renders  their  unanimity  on  that 
occasion  more  remarkable  and  admirable.  Their  devotion  was 
to  the  Stuarts,  not  to  the  English  people  ;  to  the  dynasty,  not  to 
the  nation  over  which  it  was  set.  Nevertheless,  in  bending  to 
the  yoke  of  the  Stuarts,  they  bent  to  England  also.  They  were 
perfectly  conscious  that  it  was  to  the  kings  of  England  that  they 
tendered  their  true  allegiance.  They  knew  that,  in  accepting  the 
dynasty,  they  accepted  with  it  such  English  officials  as  Borlase, 
Parsons,  and  Ormond ;  that  with  the  official  government  they 
would  have  to  accept  colonists  who  detested  them,  and  that 
those  colonists  would  be  preferred  before  them ;  that  in  the 
lower  ranks  they  would  have  to  bow  to  English  judges,  sheriffs, 
informers  even  and  spies.  Something  has  been  said  of  the 
police  which  the  genius  of  Elizabeth  invented,  and  which  has 
19 


290 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


flourished  ever  since.  Yet  did  they  not  refuse  the  accessory 
with  the  principal.  Deluded  men  they  may  be  called  by  many  ; 
but  people  canuot  ordinarily  understand  the  high  motives  which 
move  men  swayed  only  by  the  twofold  feeling  of  religion  and 
nationality. 

Nothing  in  our  opinion  could  better  prove  that  the  Irish 
were  really  a  nation,  at  the  time  we  speak  of,  than  the  remarks 
just  set  forth.  When  all  minds  are  so  unanimous,  the  wills  so 
ready,  the  arms  so  strong  and  well  prepared  to  strike  together, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  in  the  whole  exists  a  common  feeling, 
a  national  will.  Self-government  may  be  wanting ;  it  may  have 
been  suppressed  by  sheer  force  and  kept  under  by  the  most  un- 
favorable state  of  affairs,  but  the  nation  subsists  and  cannot  fail 
ultimately  to  rise. 

In  those  eventful  times  shone  forth  too  that  characteristic 
which  has  already  been  remarked  upon  of  a  true  conservative 
spirit  and  instinctive  hatred  for  every  principle  which  in  our  days 
is  called  radical  and  revolutionary.  Had  there  existed  in  the 
Irish  disposition  the  least  inclination  toward  those  social  and 
moral  aberrations,  productive  to-day  of  so  many  and  such  wide- 
spread evils,  surely  the  period  of  the  English  Revolution  was  the 
fitting  time  to  call  them  forth,  and  turn  them  from  their  steady 
adherence  to  right  and  order  into  the  new  channels,  toward 
which  nations  were  being  then  hurried,  and  which  would  really 
have  favored  for  the  time-being  their  own  efforts  for  indepen- 
dence. Then  would  the  Irish  have  presented  to  future  historians 
as  stirring  an  episode  of  excitement  and  activity  as  was  furnished 
by  the  English  and  Scotch  at  that  time,  by  the  French  later  on, 
and  which  to-day  most  European  nations  offer. 

The  temptation  was  indeed  great.  They  saw  with  what  suc- 
cess rebellion  was  rewarded  among  the  English  and  Scotch.  They 
themselves  were  sure  to  be  stamped  as  rebels  whichever  side  they 
took ;  and,  as  was  seen,  Charles  II.  allowed  his  commissioners  in 
his  act  of  settlement  so  to  style  them,  and  punish  them  for  it — 
for  supporting  the  cause  of  his  father  against  the  Parliament. 

Would  it  not  have  been  better  for  them  to  have  become  once, 
at  least,  rebels  in  true  earnest,  and  reap  the  same  advantage 
from  rebellion  which  all  around  them  reaped  %  Yet  did  they 
stand  proof  against  the  demoralizing  doctrines  of  Scotch  Cove- 
nanter and  English  republican.  Hume,  who  was  openly  adverse 
to  every  thing  Irish,  is  compelled  to  describe  this  Catholic  peo- 
ple as  "  loyal  from  principle,  attached  to  regal  power  from  reli- 
gious education,  uniformly  opposing  popular  frenzy,  and  zeal- 
ous vindicators  of  royal  prerogatives." 

All  this  was  in  perfect  accord  with  their  traditional  spirit  and 
historical  recollections.  Revolutionary  doctrines  have  always 
been  antagonistic  to  the  Irish  mind  and  heart.    This  will  appear 


THE  IRISH  AND  THE  STUARTS. 


291 


more  fully  when  recent  times  come  under  notice,  and  it  may  be 
a  surprise  to  some  to  find  that,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  indi- 
viduals, who  in  nowise  represent  the  nation,  the  latest  and 
favorite  theories  of  the  world,  not  only  on  religion,  science,  and 
philosophy,  but  likewise  on  government  and  the  social  state, 
have  never  found  open  advocates  among  them.  They,  so  far, 
constitute  the  only  nation  untouched,  as  yet,  by  the  blight  which 
is  passing  over  and  withering  the  life  of  modern  society.  Thus, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  exiled  nobility  still  rules  in  Ireland  by 
the  recollection  of  the  past,  though  there  can  no  longer  exist  a 
hope  of  reconstructing  an  ancient  order  which  has  passed  away 
forever.  The  prerogatives  once  granted  to  the  aristocratic  classes 
are  now  disowned  and  repudiated  on  all  sides ;  in  Ireland  they 
would  be  submitted  to  with  joy  to-morrow,  could  the  actual  de- 
scendants of  the  old  families  only  make  good  their  claims.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Irish  nobility,  as  a  class,  deserved 
well  of  their  country,  sacrificed  themselves  for  it  when  the  time 
of  sacrifice  came,  and  therefore  it  is  fitting  that  they  should  live 
in  the  memory  of  the  people  that  sees  their  traces  but  finds  them 
not.  The  dream  of  finding  rulers  for  the  nation  from  among 
those  who  claim  to  be  the  descendants  of  the  old  chieftains,  is  a 
dream  and  nothing  more ;  but,  even  still  to  many  Irishmen,  it 
is  within  the  compass  of  reality,  so  deeply  ingrained  is  their  con- 
servative spirit,  and  so  completely,  in  this  instance,  at  least,  are 
they  free  from  the  influx  of  modern  ideas. 

The  Stuarts,  then,  were  supported  by  the  Irish,  not  merely 
from  religious,  but  also  from  national  motives,  inasmuch  as  that 
family  was  descended  from  the  line  of  Gaelic  kings,  and,  how- 
ever unworthy  they  themselves  may  have  been,  their  rights  were 
upheld  and  acknowledged  against  all  comers.  But,  the  Stuarts 
gone,  allegiance  was  flung  to  the  winds. 

The  success  of  Cromwell  and  his  republic  was  the  doom  of  all 
prospects  of  the  reunion  of  the  two  islands  ;  and  the  subsequent 
Revolution  of  1688,  which  commenced  so  soon  after  the  death 
of  the  Protector,  left  the  Irish  in  the  state  in  which  the  strug- 
gles of  four  hundred  years  with  the  Plantagenets  and  Tudors  had 
placed  and  left  them  in  relation  to  their  connection  with  Eng- 
land— a  state  of  antagonism  and  mutual  repulsion,  wherein  the 
Irish  nation,  the  victim  of  might,  was  slowly  educated  by  mis- 
fortune until  the  time  should  come  for  the  open  acknowledg- 
ment of  right. 


CHAPTEK  XII 


A  CEXTUEY  OF  GLOOM. — THE  PENAL  LAWS. 

William  III.,  of  Orange,  was  inclined  to  observe,  in  good 
faith,  the  articles  agreed  upon  at  the  surrender  of  Limerick, 
namely,  to  allow  the  conquered  liberty  of  worship,  citizen  rights, 
so  much  as  remained  to  them  of  their  property,  and  the  means 
for  personal  safety  recognized  before  the  departure  of  Sarsfield 
and  his  men. 

The  lords  justices  even  issued  a  proclamation  commanding 
"  all  officers  and  soldiers  of  the  army  and  militia,  and  all  other 
persons  whatsoever,  to  forbear  to  do  any  wrong  or  injury,  or  to 
use  unlawful  violence  to  any  of  his  Majesty's  subjects,  whether 
of  the  British  or  Irish  nation,  without  distinction,  and  that  all 
persons  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance,  and  behaving  themselves 
according  to  law,  should  be  deemed  subjects  under  their  Majes- 
ties' protection,  and  be  equally  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  the 
law." — {Harris,  "Life  of  William") 

This  first  proclamation  not  having  been  generally  obeyed,  an- 
other was  published  denouncing  "  the  utmost  vengeance  of  the  law 
against  the  offenders  ; "  and  the  author  above  quoted  adds  that 
"  the  satisfaction  given  to  the  Irish  was  a  source  of  lasting  grati- 
tude to  the  person  and  government  of  William." 

It  is  even  asserted  that,  not  only  did  the  new  monarch  thus 
ratify  the  treaty  of  Limerick,  but  that  "  he  inserted  in  the  ratifica- 
tion a  clause  of  the  last  importance  to  the  Irish,  which  had  been 
omitted  in  the  draught  signed  by  the  lords  justices  and  Sarsfield. 
That  clause  extended  the  benefits  of  the  capitulation  to  "  all  such 
as  were  under  the  protection  of  the  Irish  army  in  the  counties 
of  Limerick,  Clare,  Kerry,  Cork,  and  Mayo.  A  great  quantity 
of  Catholic  property  depended  on  the  insertion,  of  this  clause  in 
the  ratification,  and  the  English  Privy  Council  hesitated  whether 
to  take  advantage  of  the  omission.  The  honesty  of  the  king 
declared  it  to  be  a  part  of  the  articles." 

The  final  confirmation  was  issued  from  Westminster  on  Feb- 
ruary 24,  1692,  in  the  name  of  William  and  Mary. 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


293 


But  the  party  which  had  overcome  the  honest  leanings  of 
James  I.,  if  he  ever  had  any,  and  of  his  son  and  grandson,  was 
at  this  time  more  powerful  than  ever,  and  could  not  consent  to 
extend  the  claims  of  justice  and  right  to  the  conquered.  This 
party  was  the  Ulster  colony,  which  Cromwell's  settlement  had 
spread  to  the  two  other  provinces  of  Leinster  and  Munster,  and 
which  was  confirmed  in  its  usurpation  by  the  weakness  of  the 
second  Charles.  The  motives  for  the  bitter  animosity  which 
caused  it  to  set  its  face  against  every  measure  involving  the 
scantiest  justice  toward  its  fellow-countrymen  may  be  summed 
up  in  two  words — greed  and  fanaticism. 

Until  the  time  when  the  first  of  the  Stuarts  ascended  the 
English  throne,  all  the  successive  spoliations  of  Ireland,  even  the 
last  under  Elizabeth,  at  the  end  of  the  Geraldine  war,  were 
made  to  the  advantage  of  the  English  nobility.  Even  the 
younger  sons  of  families  from  Lancashire,  Cheshire,  and  Dorset- 
shire, who  "  planted"  Munster  after  the  ruin  of  the  Desmonds, 
had  noble  blood  in  their  veins,  and  were  consequently  subject 
more  or  less  to  the  ordinary  prejudices  of  feudal  lords.  The  life 
of  the  agriculturist  and  grazier  was  too  low  down  in  the  social 
scale  to  catch  their  supercilious  glance.  The  consequence  of 
which  was,  that  the  Catholic  tenants  of  Munster  were  left  undis- 
turbed in  their  holdings.  Instead  of  the  "dues"  exacted  by 
their  former  chieftains,  they  now  paid  rent  to  their  new  lords. 

But  the  rabble  let  loose  on  the  island  by  James  I.  was 
afflicted  with  no  such  dainty  notions  as  these.  To  supercilious 
glances  were  substituted  eyes  keen  as  the  Israelites',  for  the 
"  main  chance."  The  new  planters,  intent  only  on  profit  and 
gain,  thought  with  the  French  peasant  of  an  after-date,  that,  for 
landed  estate  to  produce  its  full  value,  "  there  is  nothing  like  the 
eye  of  a  master."  The  Irish  peasant  was  therefore  removed 
from  at  least  one-half  the  farms  of  Ulster,  and  driven  to  live  as 
best  he  might  among  the  Protestant  lords  of  Munster.  And 
in  order  to  have  an  entirely  Protestant  "  plantation,"  it  became 
incumbent  on  the  new  owners  so  to  frame  the  legislation  as  to 
deprive  the  Irish  Catholics  of  any  possibility  of  recovering  their 
former  possessions.  Thus,  laws  were  passed  declaring  null  and 
void  all  purchases  made  by  "  Irish  papists." 

Who  has  not  witnessed,  at  some  period  in  his  life,  the  effect 
roduced  on  the  people  in  his  neighborhood  by  one  avaricious 
ut  wealthy  man,  intent  only  on  increasing  his  property,  and 
profiting  by  the  slavish  labor  of  the  poor  under  his  control? 
Who  has  not  detested,  in  his  inmost  soul,  the  grinding  tyranny 
of  the  miser  gloating  over  the  hard  wealth  which  he  has  wrung 
from  the  misery  and  tears  of  all  around  him,  and  who  boasts  of 
the  cunning  shrewdness,  the  success  of  which  is  only  too  visible 
in  the  desolation  that  encircles  him?    Imagine  such  scenes 


294 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


enacted  throughout  a  large  territory,  beginning  with  Ulster, 
spreading  thence  to  Munster  and  Connaught,  and  finally  through 
the  whole  island,  and  we  have  an  exact  picture  of  the  effects  of 
the  Protestant  "  plantation."  Each  year,  almost,  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  witnessed  fresh  swarms  of  these  foreign  adven- 
turers settling  on  the  island,  interrupted  in  their  operations  only 
by  the  Confederation  of  Kilkenny,  but  multiplying  faster  and 
faster  after  the  destruction  of  that  truly  national  government, 
until  at  the  time  now  under  our  consideration,  "  Scotch  thrift,"  as 
it  is  called,  had  become  the  chief  virtue  of  most  of  the  owners  of 
land — Scotch  thrift,  which  is  but  another  name  for  greed. 

It  were  easy  to  show,  by  long  details,  that  this  great  charac- 
teristic of  the  new  "  plantation  "  would  suffice  to  explain  that 
general  and  terrible  pauperism  which  has  since  become  the 
striking  feature  of  once-happy  Ireland.  But  only  a  few  words 
can  be  allowed. 

It  is  the  fanaticism  of  the  new  "  planters  "  which  will  chiefly 
occupy  our  attention.  These  were  composed,  first,  of  the  Scotcn 
Presbyterians  of  Knox,  whom  James  I.  had  dispatched,  and  after- 
ward of  the  ranting  soldiers  and  officers  of  Cromwell's  army, 
more  Jew  than  Christian,  since  their  mouths  were  ever  filled 
with  Bible  texts  of  that  particular  character  wherein  the  wrath 
of  God  is  denounced  against  the  impious  and  cruel  tribes  of 
Palestine.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  ideas  of  God  and  man, 
promulgated  and  spread  among  the  people  by  Calvin  and  Knox, 
have  ever  been  equalled  in  evil  consequences  by  the  most  super- 
stitious beliefs  of  ancient  pagans.  Let  us  look  well  at  those 
teachings.  According  to  them,  God  is  the  author  of  evil :  he 
issues  forth  his  decrees  of  election  or  reprobation,  irrespective  of 
merit  or  demerit ;  inflicting  eternal  torments  on  innumerable 
souls  which  never  could  have  been  saved,  and  for  whom  the  Son 
of  God  did  not  die.  AVhat  any  rational  being  must  consider 
as  the  most  revolting  cruelty  and  injustice,  these  men  called  acts 
of  pure  justice  executed  by  the  hand  of  God.  God  saves  blindly 
those  whom  he  saves,  and  takes  them  home  to  his  bosom,  though 
reeking  with  the  unrepented  and  unexpiated  crimes  of  their 
lives — unexpiable,  in  fact,  on  the  part  of  man — merely  because 
they  persuade  themselves  that  they  are  of  "  the  elect." 

In  that  system,  man  is  a  mere  machine,  unendowed  with  the 
slightest  symptom  of  free-will,  but  inflated  with  the  most  over- 
bearing pride ;  deeming  all  others  but  those  of  his  sect  the 
necessary  objects  of  the  blind  wrath  of  God,  cast  off  and  repro- 
bate from  all  eternity  in  the  designs  of  Providence  ;  for  whom 
"  the  elect "  can  feel  no  more  pity  or  affection  than  redeemed 
men  can  for  the  arch-fiend  himself,  both  being  alike  redeemless 
and  unredeemed. 

No  system  of  pretended  religion,  invented  by  the  perverted 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


295 


mind  of  man,  under  the  inspiration  of  the  Evil  One,  could  go 
further  in  atrocity  than  this. 

Yet  such  was  the  pure,  undiluted  essence  of  Calvinism  in  its 
beginning.  In  our  times  its  doctrines  have  been  radically 
modified,  as  its  adherents  could  not  escape  the  soothing  opera- 
tions of  time  and  calm  reason.  But,  at  the  period  of  which  we 
speak,  its  absurd  and  revolting  tenets  were  fresh,  and  taken 
religiously  to  the  letter. 

The  new  colonists,  therefore,  believed,  and  acted  on  the 
belief,  that  all  men  outside  of  their  own  body  were  the  enemies 
of  God  and  had  God  for  their  enemy.  What  a  convenient  doc- 
trine for  men  of  an  "  itching  palm  ! "  The  papists,  in  particular, 
were  worse  than  idolaters,  and  to  "  root  them  out "  was  only  to 
render  a  service  to  God.  In  the  event  of  this  holy  desire  not 
being  altogether  possible  of  execution,  the  nearest  approach  to 
the  goodly  work  was  to  strip  them  of  all  rights,  and  render  the 
life  of  such  reprobates  more  miserable  than  the  death  which  was 
to  condemn  them  to  the  eternal  torments  planned  out  for  them 
in  the  eternal  decrees,  and  so  give  them  a  foretaste  here  of  the 
life  destined  for  them  hereafter. 

The  reader,  then,  may  understand  how  the  Scotch  Presby- 
terians of  the  time,  overflowing  as  they  were  with  free  and 
republican  ideas  as  far  as  regarded  their  own  welfare,  when  it 
came  to  a  question  of  extending  the  same  to  their  Catholic 
fellow-men,  if  they  would  have  admitted  the  term,  scouted  such 
a  preposterous  and  ungodly  idea.  These  latter  were  unworthy 
the  enjoyment  of  such  benefit.  And  thus  the  hoot  of  Protestant 
ascendency,  "  Protestant  liberty  and  right !  "  came  up  as  war-cries 
to  stifle  out  all  efforts  tending  to  extend  even  the  most  ordinary 
privileges  of  the  liberty  which  is  man's  by  nature,  to  any  but 
Protestants  of  the  same  class  as  themselves. 

Here  a  curious  reflection,  full  of  meaning,  and  causing  the 
mind  almost  to  mock  at  the  type  of  a  free  constitution,  presents 
itself.  The  eighteenth  century  witnessed  the  development  of 
the  British  Constitution  as  now  known.  It  embraced  in  its 
bosom  all  British  citizens,  raising  up  the  nation  to  the  pinnacle  of 
material  prosperity,  while  at  the  same  time  and  all  through  it, 
whole  classes  of  citizens  of  the  British  Empire,  both  in  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  were  openly,  unblushingly,  legally,  without 
a  thought  of  mercy  or  pity — not  to  mention  such  an  ugly  word 
as  logic — denied  the  protection  of  the  common  charter  and  the 
common  rights. 

Under  Cromwell  the  doctrines  of  Calvin  and  Knox  did  not 
show  themselves  quite  so  obtrusively.  The  officers  and  soldiers 
of  his  armies,  in  common  with  their  general,  thought  the  Pres- 
byterian Kirk  too  aristocratic  and  unbending.  They  formed  a 
Dew  sect  of  Independents,  now  called  Congregationalists.  But 


296 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOAL 


the  chief  feature  of  the  new  religious  system  became  as  produc- 
tive of  evil  to  Ireland  as  the  stern  dogmas  of  Calvin  ever  could 
be.  The  principle  that  the  Scriptures  constituted  the  only  rule 
of  faith  was  beginning  to  bear  its  fruits.  It  is  needless  to  remark 
that  Holy  Scripture,  when  abandoned  to  the  free  interpretation 
of  all,  becomes  the  source  of  many  errors,  as  it  may  be  the  source 
of  many  crimes.  The  historian  and  novelist  even  have  ere  now 
frequently  told  us  to  what  purpose  the  "  Word  of  God  "  was 
manipulated  by  Scottish  Covenanter  and  Cromwellian  freebooter. 

The  Covenanter,  or  freebooter,  saw  in  the  antagonists  of 
his  "  real  rebellion "  and  opposers  of  the  designs  of  his  dark 
policy,  only  the  enemies  of  God  and  the  adversaries  of  his 
Providence.  He  believed  himself  divinelv  commissioned  to  de- 
stroy  Catholics  and  butcher  innocent  women  and  children,  as  the 
armies  of  Joshua  were  authorized  to  fight  against  Amalek,  and 
possess  themselves  of  a  country  occupied  by  a  people  whose 
cruel  idolatry  was  ineradicable,  and  rendered  them  absolutely 
irreconcilable.  Thus  to  the  stern  and  odious  tenets  of  Calvinism 
the  new  invaders  joined  the  fanaticism  of  self-deluded  Jews, 
never  having  received  any  commission  from  the  God  whom  they 
blasphemed,  yet  bearing  themselves  with  all  the  solemnity  of  his 
instruments. 

There  is  consequently  nothing  to  surprise  us  in  the  atrocities 
committed  by  the  Scotch  troops  in  1611,  when  they  first  invaded 
the  island  from  the  north,  as  little  as  there  is  in  the  numerous 
massacres  which  first  attended  the  march  of  the  troops  of  Crom- 
well, Ireton,  and  other  leaders,  and  which  were  only  discontinued 
when  the  voice  of  Europe  rose  up  in  revolt  at  the  recital,  and 
they  themselves  became  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  complete 
destruction  of  the  people  was  impossible,  and  the  only  next 
best  thing  to  be  done  was  to  export  as  many  as  could  be  exported 
and  reduce  the  rest  to  slavery. 

Thus  did  the  new  colony  commence  its  workings,  and  it  is 
easy  to  comprehend  how  such  intensely  Protestant  doctrines, 
remaining  implanted  in  the  breasts  of  the  people  who  came  to 
make  Ireland  their  home,  could  not  fail  to  oppose  an  insur- 
mountable barrier  to  the  fusion  of  the  new  and  the  old  inhab- 
itants, and  impart  a  fearful  reality  to  the  theory  of  "  Protestant 
ascendency"  and  "Protestant  liberty  and  right " — the  liberty 
and  right  to  oppress  those  of  another  creed. 

These  watchwords  form  the  key  to  the  understanding  of  all 
the  miseries  and  woes  of  Irishmen  during  the  whole  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  We  now  turn  to  contemplate  the  commence- 
ment of  the  workings  of  this  fanatic  intolerance  which  ushered  in 
the  century  of  gloom. 

The  lords  justices  had  just  returned,  after  concluding  the 
treaty  of  peace  with  Sarsfield,  when  the  first  mutterings  of  the 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


297 


thunder  were  heard  that  presaged  the  coming  storm.  Dr.  Dop- 
ping,  the  Protestant  Bishop  of  Heath,  while  preaching  before 
them  on  the  Sunday  following  their  return  to  Dublin,  reproached 
them  openly  in  Christ  Church  for  their  indulgence  to  the  Irish, 
and  urged  that  no  faith  was  to  he  kept  with  such  a  cruel  and  per- 
fidious race.  This  sort  of  doctrine  has  been  heard  before,  and 
from  men  of  the  stamp  of  Dr.  Dopping  ;  it  is  still  heard  every 
day,  but  it  is  generally  thrown  into  the  teeth  of  Catholics  and 
saddled  on  them  as  their  doctrine,  however  frequently  refuted. 

The  doctor  stated  broadly  that  with  such  people  no  treaties 
were  binding,  and  that  therefore  the  articles  of  Limerick  were 
not  to  be  observed. 

William  and  his  Irish  government  endeavored  to  check  this 
intemperance  ;  but  the  feelings  of  the  sectarians  were  too  ardent 
to  be  thus  easily  smothered,  and  the  greater  the  opposition  they 
encountered,  the  more  they  insisted  on  proclaiming  their  views, 
o  which  naturally  they  gained  many  adherents  among  the  colo- 
nists of  the  Protestant  plantation. 

The  Irish  Parliament  soon  assembled  in  Dublin.  The  major- 
ity, imbued  with  the  gloomy  Calvinism  of  the  times,  and  fearing 
to  face  the  opposition  of  the  respectable  minority  of  Catholic 
members,  who  had  come  to  take  their  seats,  passed  an  act  impos- 
ing a  new  oath,  in  contradiction  to  one  of  the  articles  of  the 
treaty.  That  oath  included  an  abjuration  of  James's  right  dejure, 
a  renunciation  of  the  spiritual  authority  of  the  Pope,  and  (as 
though  that  were  not  enough  to  exclude  Catholics)  a  declaration 
against  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  and  other  fundamen- 
tal tenets  of  their  creed.  Persons  who  refused  to  take  this  oath 
were  debarred  from  all  offices  and  emoluments,  as  well  as  from 
both  Houses  of  the  Irish  Parliament. 

The  Catholic  members  were  compelled  to  withdraw  at  once  ; 
and  no  Catholic  ever  took  part  in  the  legislation  of  his  own 
country  from  that  day  until  the  Emancipation  in  1829. 

After  this  withdrawal,  which  in  the  times  of  the  French  Con- 
vention would  have  been  called  an  ejniration,  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment became  the  bane  of  the  country.  In  fact,  it  only  repre- 
sented parliamentary  England,  and  subjected  Ireland  to  every 
measure  required  by  English  ultraists  for  the  attainment  of  their 
selfish  purposes.  Possessed  by  a  gloomy  fanaticism,  its  main  ob- 
ject was  to  root  out  of  the  island  every  vestige  that  remained 
of  the  religion  which  had  once  flourished  there.  All  its  legisla- 
tive spirit  was  concentrated  in  the  two  questions :  Are.  the  laws 
already  in  existence  against  the  further  growth  of  Popery  rigid- 
ly enforced  ?  and,  cannot  some  new  law  be  introduced  to  further 
the  same  object  ? 

Many  a  time  were  these  two  questions  put  in  the  assembly 
called  the  Irish  Parliament,  until  near  the  end  of  the  eighteen th 


293 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


century ;  and  every  time  some  zealous  Protestant  member  was 
found  endowed  with  the  fertile  ingenuity  requisite  to  invent 
some  new  scheme  of  persecution,  and  move  for  some  new  meas- 
ure which  had  escaped  his  less-gifted  predecessors. 

So  furious  grew  this  spirit  that  in  1704,  in  the  Augustan  age 
of  "  our  good  Queen  Anne,"  at  the  very  beginning  of  this  epoch, 
when  the  whole  House  of  Commons,  their  Speaker  at  their  head, 
went  to  present  an  address  to  the  lord-lieutenant,  then  the 
Duke  of  Ormond,  petitioning  an  increase  of  the  penalties  against 
Catholics,  it  is  said  that  the  party  in  the  House  which  stood  in 
favor  of  the  persecuted  Irish,  ashamed  of  the  spirit  of  oppression 
then  raging,  moved  for  measures  of  unexampled  atrocity  in 
order  to  deteat  the  bill.  Among  such  measures  was  the  clause 
which  provided  that  the  son  ox  a  Catholic,  by  "conforming," 
might  render  his  father  a  mere  tenant  for  life.  But,  instead  of  pro- 
ducing the  desired  effect,  and  opening  the  eyes  of  all  to  the  ex- 
cess of  persecution,  members  were  only  too  eager  to  accept  every 
thing  proposed,  whatever  might  bs  the  extravagance  of  the 
measure,  and  thus  what  had  been  intended  as  an  ironical  jest  be- 
came a  bitter  and  cruel  reality. 

Henceforth  the  two  parties  contending  for  power  in  England, 
the  Whigs  and  Tories,  came  to  look  upon  the  Irish  as  a  fit  sub- 
ject for  party  intrigue,  and  the  only  purpose  which  they  could 
find  the  much-abused  nation  capable  of  serving  politically  was 
as  a  handle  for  their  selfish  ambition. 

With  perfect  justice  could  Matthew  O'Connor  say,  in  speak- 
ing of  Somerville's  "  Queen  Anne  : "  "  The  Tories  had  been 
undermined  by  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  and  their  successors, 
the  Whigs,  combining  transcendent  talent  for  mischief,  with  an 
implacable  hatred  to  the  exiled  family  and  their  supposed  adher- 
ents in  Ireland,  exerted  all  their  abilities  to  rivet  the  chains  of 
Catholics,  and  to  guard  against  all  evasion  of  the  existing  laws. 
To  this  party  belonged  the  famous  Earl  of  Wharton,  immortal- 
ized in  infamy  by  the  prose  of  Swift  and  the  poetry  of  Pope.  .  .  . 
The  outlines  of  his  character,  his  sarcastic  malignity,  his  eager- 
ness for  persecution,  his  delight  in  the  misery  01  others,  may  all 
be  traced  in  his  speech  to  the  Irish  Parliament  of  1709  : 

"  1  I  am  obliged,'  said  he,  '  and  directed  to  lay  before  you  an- 
other consideration  of  infinite  consequence,  and  that  is,  to  put 
you  in  mind  of  the  great  inequality  there  is,  in  point  of  numbers, 
between  the  Protestants  and  Papists  in  this  kingdom,  and  the 
melancholy  experience  you  have  had  of  the  good  nature  of  this 
sort  of  men'  (the  Irish)  '  whenever  they  had  it  in  their  power  to 
distress  and  destroy  you.  This  reflection  must  necessarily  lead 
you  to  think  of  two  things  :  the  first  is,  seriously  to  consider 
whether  any  new  bills  are  wanted  to  explain  and  enforce  those 
good  laws  which  you  have  already  for  preventing  the  growth  of 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


299 


Popery,  and,  in  the  next  place,  it  makes  evident  the  necessity 
there  is  of  cultivating  and  preserving  a  good  understanding 
among  all  Protestants  in  this  kingdom.'  " 

Let  the  reader  bear  in  mind  that  language  such  as  this,  and 
its  result  in  the  shape  of  atrocious  legislation,  continued  through- 
out the  whole  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  Ireland,  and  he  will 
find  no  difficulty  in  understanding  the  meaning  of  Edmund 
Burke's  words  when  he  said  :  "  The  code  against  the  Catholics 
was  a  machine  of  wise  and  elaborate  contrivance ;  and  as  well 
fitted  for  the  oppression,  impoverishment,  and  degradation  of  a 
people,  and  the  debasement  in  them  of  human  nature  itself,  as 
ever  proceeded  from  the  perverted  ingenuity  of  man."  And, 
elsewhere :  "  To  render  men  patient  under  the  deprivation  of  all 
the  rights  of  human  nature,  every  thing  which  could  give  them 
a  knowledge  and  feeling  of  those  rights  was  rationally  forbidden. 
To  render  humanity  fit  to  be  insulted,  it  was  fit  that  it  should  be 
degraded." 

But  it  is  very  pertinent  to  our  purpose  to  give  a  sketch  of 
those  good  laws,  as  Wharton  calls  them,  before  seeing  how  the 
Irish  preferred  to  submit  to  them  rather  than  lose  their  faith  by 
"  conforming."  The  subject  has  been  already  investigated  by 
many  writers,  and  of  late  far  more  completely  than  formerly. 
But  the  authors  never  presented  the  laws  as  a  whole,  contenting 
themselves,  for  the  most  part,  by  transcribing  them  in  the  chro- 
nological order  in  which  they  were  enacted,  or,  if  occasionally 
they  endeavored  to  combine  and  thus  present  a  more  striking 
idea  of  the  effect  which  such  laws  must  have  produced  on  the 
people,  they  were  never,  as  far  as  is  known  to  the  writer,  reduced 
to  a  plan,  and  consequently  fail  to  bring  forth  the  effect  intended 
to  be  produced  by  them. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  give  the  text  of  those  various  laws — 
impossible  even  to  give  a  fairly  accurate  idea  of  the  whole.  They 
shall  be  classified,  however,  to  the  best  of  our  ability,  and  as 
fully  as  circumstances  permit. 

Mr.  Prendergast  seems  to  consider  their  ultimate  object  always 
to  have  been  the  robbing  of  the  Irish  of  their  lands,  or  securing 
the  plunder  if  already  in  possession.  That  this  was  one  of  the 
great  objects  always  kept  in  view  in  their  enactment,  we  do  not 
feel  inclined  to  contest ;  but  that  it  was  their  only  or  even  chief 
cause,  we  may  be  allowed  to  question,  with  the  greatest  deference 
to  the  opinion  of  the  celebrated  author  of  the  often-quoted 
"  Cromwellian  Settlement." 

We  believe  those  laws  to  have  been  produced  chiefly  by  sec- 
tarian fanaticism  ;  or,  if  some  of  their  framers,  such  as  Lord 
Wharton,  possessed  no  religious  feelings  of  any  kind,  and  could 
not  be  called  fanatics,  their  intent  was  to  pander  to  the  real 
fanaticism  of  the  English  people,  as  it  existed  at  the  time,  and 


300 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


particularly  of  the  colony  planted  in  Ireland,  which  hated  Popery 
to  the  death,  and  would  have  given  all  its  possessions  and  lands 
tor  the  destruction  of  the  Scarlet  Woman. 

In  order  to  attain  the  great  result  proposed,  the  aim  of  the 
"  penal  statute"  was  one  in  its  very  complexity.  For  it  had  to 
deal  with  complex  rights,  which  it  took  away  one  after  another 
until  the  unity  of  the  system  was  completed  by  the  suppression 
of  them  all. 

We  classify  these  under  the  heads  of  political,  civil,  and  hu- 
man rights.  The  result  of  the  whole  policy  was  to  degrade  the 
Irish  to  the  level  of  the  wretched  helots  under  Sparta,  with  this 
difference  :  while  the  slaves  of  the  Lacedaemonians  numbered  but 
a  few  thousands,  the  Irish  were  counted  by  millions. 

The  system,  as  a  whole,  was  the  work  of  time,  and,  under 
William  of  Orange — even  under  Queen  Anne — it  had  not  yet  at- 
tained its  maturity,  though  the  principal  and  the  severest  meas- 
ures were  carried  and  put  in  force  from  the  very  beginning. 
The  ingenious  little  devices  regarding  short  and  small  leases,  the 
possession  of  valuable  horses,  etc.,  were  mere  fanciful  adjuncts 
which  the  witty  and  inventive  legislators  of  the  Hanoverian  dy- 
nasty were  happy  enough  to  find  unrecorded  in  the  statute- 
books,  and  which  they  had  the  honor  of  setting  there,  and  thus 
adding  a  new  piquancy  and  vigorous  flavor  to  the  whole  dish. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  system 
may  be  said  to  have  reached  its  perfection.  After  that  time  it 
would,  in  all  likelihood,  have  been  impossible  to  improve  further, 
and  render  the  yoke  of  slavery  heavier  and  more  galling  to  the 
Irish.  The  beauty  and  simplicity  of  the  whole  consisted  in  the 
fact  that  the  great  majority  of  these  measures  were  not  decreed 
in  so  many  positive  and  express  terms  against  Catholics  in  the 
form  of  open  and  persecuting  statutes.  It  was  merely  mentioned 
in  the  laws  that,  to  enjoy  such  and  such  a  particular  right,  it  was 
necessary  that  every  subject  of  the  crown  should  take  such  and 
such  an  oath,  which  no  Catholic  could  take.  Thus,  the  entire 
Irish  population  was  set  between  their  religion  and  their  rights, 
and  at  any  moment,  by  merely  taking  the  oath,  they  were  at  lib- 
erty to  enjoy  all  the  privileges  which  rendered  the  colonists  liv- 
ing in  their  midst  so  happy  and  contented,  and  so  proud  of  their 
"  JProtestant  ascendency." 

It  was  hoped,  no  doubt,  that,  if  at  first  and  for  a  certain  time, 
the  faith  of  the  Irish  would  stand  proof  and  prompt  them  to  sac- 
rifice every  thing  held  dear  in  life,  rather  than  surrender  that 
faith,  nevertheless,  worn  out  at  length,  and  disheartened  by 
wretchedness,  unable  longer  to  sustain  their  heavy  burden,  they 
would  finally  succumb,  and,  by  the  mere  action  of  such  an  easy 
thing  as  recording  an  oath  in  accordance  with  the  law,  though 
against  their  conscience,  become  men  and  citizens.    It  was  what 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


301 


the  French  Conventionalists  of  1793  called  "  desoler  la  patience" 
of  their  victims. 

This  unholy  hope  was  disappointed ;  and,  with  the  exception 
of  a  comparatively  few  weak  Christians  among  their  number,  the 
nation  stood  firm  and  preferred  the  "ignominy  of  the  cross  of 
Christ "  to  the  enjoyments  of  this  perishable  life. 

Their  political  rights  were,  as  was  seen,  the  first  to  be  taken 
away.  The  Parliament  of  1691  required  of  its  members  the  oath 
referred  to,  and  for  the  repudiation  of  which,  all  the  Catholic 
numbers  were  compelled  at  once  to  withdraw.  But  the  con- 
trivance of  swearing  being  found  such  an  excellent  instrument  to 
use  against  men  possessed  of  a  conscience,  the  ruling  body — now 
reduced  to  the  former  Protestant  majority — required  that  the 
same  oath  be  taken  by  all  electors,  magistrates,  and  officers  of 
whatever  grade,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  in  the  land. 

The  oath  itself  was  an  elastic  formula,  capable  of  being 
stretched  or  contracted,  according  to  circumstances,  so  that,  by 
the  addition  of  an  incidental  phrase  or  two,  it  might  be  framed 
te  meet  new  exigencies,  and  give  expression  to  the  lively  imagina- 
tion of  ingenious  members  of  Parliament.  It  would  be  curious 
to  collect  an  account  of  the  variety  of  shapes  it  assumed,  and  to 
comment  on  the  different  occasions  which  gave  rise  to  these 
different  developments.  A  long  history  of  persecuting  frenzy 
might  thus  be  condensed  into  a  commentary  of  a  comparatively 
few  pages.  Even  at  the  so-called  Catholic  Emancipation  it  was 
not  abolished ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  sacredly  preserved,  and 
two  new  formulas  drawn  up,  the  one  for  the  Protestant  and  the 
other  for  the  Catholic  members  of  the  legislature,  Lords  and 
Commons,  and  so  it  remains,  to  this  day,  except  that  the  most 
offensive  clauses  of  the  last  century  have  disappeared. 

Imagine,  then,  the  spectacle  offered  by  the  island  whenever 
an  election  for  representatives,  magistrates,  or  petty  officers,  took 
place ;  whenever  those  entitled  to  select  holders  of  offices  which 
were  not  subject  to  election,  made  known  the  persons  of  their 
choice.  This  vast  array  of  aristocratic  masters  was  chosen  from 
the  ranks  of  the  English  colonists,  and  had  for  its  avowed  object 
to  preserve  the  Protestant  ascendency,  and  consequently  grind 
under  the  heel  of  the  most  abject  oppression  the  whole  mass  of 
the  population  of  the  island.  There  was  no  other  meaning  in 
all  these  political  combinations  and  changes,  recurring  peri- 
odically, and  heralded  forth  by  the  voice  of  the  press  and  the 
thunder  of  the  hustings.  Politics  in  Ireland  was  nothing  else 
than  the  expression  given  to  the  despotism  of  an  insignificant 
minority  over  almost  the  entire  body  of  the  people.  For,  despite 
All  their  repressive  measures,  the  enemies  of  the  Catholic  faith 
could  never  pretend  even  to  a  semblance  in  point  of  numbers, 
much  less  to  a  majority,  over  the  children  of  the  creed  taught 


302 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


by  Patrick.  Ireland  remained  Catholic  throughout ;  and  ita 
oppressors  could  not  fail  to  feel  the  bitter  humiliation  of  their 
constant  numerical  inferiority.  Hence  the  words  quoted  in  the 
speech  of  Wharton,  the  lord-lieutenant. 

This  has  always  been  the  case,  in  spite  of  the  combination  of 
a  multitude  of  circumstances  adverse  to  the  spread  of  the  Cath- 
olic population.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  give  room  for  the  statis- 
tics and  remarks  of  Abbe  Perraud  on  this  most  interesting 
subject,  contained  in  his  book  on  "  Ireland  under  British  rule." 

"In  1672,  the  total  population  of  Ireland  was  1,100,000  (it  is 
to  be  remembered  that  this  was  after  the  massacres  and  trans- 
portations of  Cromwell's  period).    Of  that  number 

800,000  were  Catholics. 

50,000    "  Dissenters. 
150,000    "    Church-of-Ireland  men. 

"In  1727,  the  Anglican  Primate  of  Ireland,  Boulter,  Arch- 
bishop of  Armagh,  wrote  to  his  English  colleague,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  that  6  we  have,  in  all  probability,  in  this 
kingdom,  at  least  five  Papists  for  every  Protestant.'  Those  pro- 
portions are  confirmed  by  official  statistics  under  Queen  Anne. 

"In  1740,  according  to  a  kind  of  official  census,  confirmed  by 
Wakefield,  the  number  of  Protestant  heads  of  families  did  not 
exceed  96,067. 

"  Twenty-six  years  later,  the  Dublin  House  of  Lords  caused 
a  comparative  table  of  Protestant  and  Catholic  families  to  be 
drawn  up  for  each  county.    The  result  was  the  following: 

Protestant  families   130,263 

Catholic         "   305,680 

"  In  1834,  exact  statistical  returns  being  made  of  the  members 
of  each  communion,  the  following  was  the  result :  The  total 
population  being  estimated  at  7,943,940,  the  Church-of-Ireland 
members  amounted  only  to  the  number  of  852,064.  The  remain- 
ing 7,091,876  were  thus  divided  : 

Presbyterians   642,350 

Other  Dissenters  21,808 

Catholics   6,427,718 

"  The  censuses  of  1841  and  1851  contained  no  information 
upon  this  important  question.  Thirty  years  had  therefore 
elapsed  since  official  figures  had  given  the  exact  proportions  of 
each  Church. 

"  This  silence  of  the  Blue  Books  had  given  rise,  among  the 
Protestant  press  of  England  and  Ireland,  to  the  opinion,  too 
hastily  adopted  on  the  Continent  by  publicists  of  great  weight, 
that  emigration  and  famine  had  resulted  in  the  equalization  of 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


303 


the  numbers  of  Protestants  and  Catholics  in  Ireland.  The 
evident  conclusion  joyfully  drawn  from  this  supposed  fact  by  the 
defenders  of  the  Anglican  Church  was,  that  the  scandal  of  a 
Protestant  establishment  in  the  midst  and  at  the  expense  of  a 
Catholic  people  was  gradually  dying  away. 

"  The  forlorn  hope  of  the  Tory  and  Orange  press  went  still 
further.  They  boldly  disputed  Ireland's  right  to  the  title  of 
Catholic.  So,  although,  ten  years  and  twenty  years  before,  these 
same  journals  furiously  opposed  the  admission  of  religious  de- 
nominations into  the  statistics  of  the  census,  yet,  when  the  census 
of  1861  drew  near,  they  quite  as  loudly  demanded  its  insertion. 
They  made  it  a  matter  of  challenge  to  the  Catholics. 

u  The  ultramontane  journals  accepted  the  challenge.  The 
Catholics  unanimously  demanded  a  denominational  census.  The 
results  were  submitted  to  the  representatives  of  the  nation  in 
July,  1861.  ~No  shorter,  more  decisive,  or  more  triumphant 
answer  could  have  been  given  to  the  sarcasms  and  challenges  of 
the  old  Protestant  party." 

We  confine  ourselves  here  to  the  total  sums,  leaving  out 
minor  details  : 

Catholics   4,490,583 

Establishment  687,661 

Dissenters     .......  595,577 

Jews        .......  322 

Thus  in  this  century,  as  throughout  the  whole  of  the  century 
of  gloom,  the  island  is  truly  and  really  Catholic. 

By  way  of  contrast,  a  few  words  on  the  same  subject  may  not 
be  out  of  place  -with  reference  to  England.  We  have  already 
stated,  and  given  some  of  the  reasons  for  so  doing,  that,  at  the 
death  of  Elizabeth,  England  was  already  Protestant  to  the  core. 

In  his  "  Memoirs,"  vol.  ii.,  Sir  John  Dalrymple  has  pub- 
lished a  curious  official  report  of  the  numbers  of  Catholics  in 
England,  in  the  reign  of  William  of  Orange,  found  after  his  death 
in  the  iron  chest  of  that  vigilant  monarch.  From  this  authentic 
document  we  take  the  following  extract : 

Number  of  Freeholders  in  England.1 

Conformists.       Non-Conformists.  Papists. 

Province  of  Canterbury,      2,123,362  93,151  11,878 

Province  of  York,         .       353,892  15,525  1,978 


Totals       .       .    2,477,254        108,676  13,856 

It  is  known  also  that,  under  George  III.,  the  number  of  Cath- 
olics in  the  whole  of  Great  Britain  did  not  exceed  sixty  thou- 

1  Dr.  Madden's  "  Penal  Laws." 


304 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


Band,  so  thorough  had  been  the  separation  of  England  from  the 
true  Church. 

To  return  to  the  ostracism  of  a  whole  nation  from  its  politi- 
cal rights.  ~No  individual  really  belonging  to  it  could  take  the 
slightest  share  in  the  administration  of  its  affairs.  They  were 
all  left  to  the  control  of  aliens,  whose  boast  it  was  that  they 
were  English,  and  whose  chief  object  was  to  secure  English  as- 
cendency, and  subject  every  thing  Irish  to  the  rule  of  force. 

Yet  all  this  while  a  new  era  was  dawning  on  the  world ;  a 
multitude  of  voices  were  proclaiming  new  social  and  political 
doctrines ;  all  were  to  be  free,  to  possess  privileges  that  might 
not  be  intrenched  upon  —  to  wit,  a  voice  in  the  affairs  of  the  na- 
tion, trial  by  their  peers,  no  taxation  without  due  representation, 
and  the  like  —  while  a  whole  nation  by  the  unanimous  consent 
of  the  loudest  of  these  freedom-mongers  was  excluded  from 
every  benefit  of  the  new  ideas,  was  literally  placed  in  bondage, 
and  left  without  the  possibility  of  being  heard  and  admitted  to 
the  enjoyment  of  the  common  rights,  because  the  one  voice 
which  would  have  declared  in  their  favor,  which  in  former  times 
had  so  often  and  so  loudly  spoken,  when  so  to  speak  was  to 
offend  the  powers  of  this  world,  was  deprived  of  the  right  of  be- 
ing heard.  The  doctrine  that  the  Papal  supremacy  was  a 
usurpation,  and  the  Pope  himself  an  enemy  of  freedom,  was  laid 
down  as  a  cardinal  principle.  After  such  public  renunciation  of 
former  doctrines,  all  these  new  and  so-called  liberal  theories  were 
a  mere  delusion  and  a  snare.  There  was  no  possibility  of  effect- 
ually securing  freedom,  in  spite  of  so  much  promised  to  all  and 
granted  to  some  ;  no  possibility  of  really  protecting  the  rights  of 
all.  The  public  right  newly  proclaimed  ended  finally  in  might. 
Majorities  ruled  despotically  over  the  minorities,  and,  as  the  des- 
potism of  the  multitude  is  ever  harsher  and  more  universal  than 
that  of  any  monarch,  the  reign  of  cruel  injustice  was  let  in 
upon  Ireland.  And  in  her  case  the  injustice  was  peculiarly 
aggravated,  inasmuch  as  it  was  a  small  alien  minority  which 
trampled  under  foot  the  rights  of  a  great  native  majority. 

But,  although  the  deprivation  of  political  rights  is  perhaps 
more  fatal  to  a  nation  than  that  of  any  other,  on  account  of  what 
follows  in  its  train,  particularly  in  the  framing  of  the  laws,  never- 
theless the  deprivation  of  civil  rights  is  generally  more  acutely 
felt,  because  the  grievances  resulting  from  it  meet  man  at  every 
turn,  at  every  moment  of  his  life,  in  his  household  and  domestic 
circle.  In  fact,  the  penal  laws  stripped  Catholics  of  every  civil 
right  which  modern  society  can  conceive,  and  it  was  chiefly  there 
that  the  ingenuity  of  their  oppressors  labored  during  the  greater 
part  of  a  century  to  make  a  total  wreck  of  Irish  welfare. 

Those  rights  may  be  classified  generally  as  the  right  of  pos- 
sessing and  holding  landed  property,  the  right  of  earning  an 


A  CESTTUKY  OF  GLOOM. 


305 


honorable  living  by  profession  or  trade,  the  right  of  protection 
against  injustice  by  equal  laws,  the  right  of  fair  trial  before  con- 
demnation :  such  are  the  chief.  It  is  doubtful  if  there  is  any 
thing  of  importance  left  of  which  a  citizen  can  be  deprived,  un- 
less indeed  he  be  openly  and  unjustly  deprived  of  life. 

It  has  been  already  indicated  how  the  policy  of  England, 
with  regard  to  Ireland,  from  that  first  invasion,  in  the  time  of 
Henry  ll.,  was  prompted  by  the  desire  of  gaining  possession  of 
the  soil,  and  how  after  seven  hundred  years  of  struggle  it  suc- 
ceeded in  attaining  its  object ;  so  that  the  whole  island  had  been 
confiscated,  and  in  some  instances  two  or  three  times  over.  The 
object  of  the  penal  laws,  therefore,  could  not  be  to  deprive  the 
Irish  of  the  land  which  they  no  longer  possessed,  but  to  prevent 
them  acquiring  any  land  in  any  quantity  whatever,  and  from  re- 
entering into  possession,  by  purchase  or  otherwise,  of  any  por- 
tion of  their  own  soil  and  of  the  estates  which  belonged  to  their 
ancestors.  So  harsh  and  cunning  a  design,  we  doubt  not,  never 
entered  the  minds  of  any  former  legislators,  even  in  pagan  an- 
tiquity. 

The  great  stinrulus  to  exertion  in  civil  society  consists  of  the 
acquisition  of  property,  chiefly  of  land.  In  feudal  times  seigno- 
rial  estates  could  be  purchased  by  none  but  those  of  noble 
blood  ;  but  with  allodial  estates  it  was  different  all  through  Eu- 
rope. Yet  just  at  the  time  when  feudal  laws  were  passing  into 
disuse  the  Irish  were  prevented,  by  carefully-drawn  enactments, 
from  purchasing  even  a  rood  of  their  native  soil.  "  The  prohi- 
bition had  been  already  extended  to  the  whole  nation  by  the 
Commonwealth  government,  and  when  the  lands  forfeited  by  the 
wars  of  1690  came  to  be  sold  at  Chichester  House  in  1703,  the 
Irish  were  declared  by  the  English  Parliament  incapable  of  pur- 
chasing at  the  auction,  or  of  taking  a  lease  of  more  than  two 
acres." — (Prendergast.) 

The  same  author  adds  in  a  note  :  "But  it  was  when  the  es- 
tate was  made  the  property  of  the  first  Protestant  discoverer, 
that  animation  was  put  into  this  law.  Discoverers  then  became 
like  hounds  upon  the  scent  after  lands  secretly  purchased  by  the 
Irish.  Gentlemen  fearing  to  lose  their  lands,  found  it  now  neces- 
sary to  conform — namely,  to  abjure  Catholicism.  Between  1T03 
and  1709  there  were  only  thirty-six  conformers  in  Ireland ;  in 
the  next  ten  years  (after  the  Discovery  Act),  the  conformists 
were  one  hundred  and  fifty." 

But  the  full  object  was  not  only  to  prevent  the  Irish  from  be- 
coming even  moderately  rich  in  land  ;  they  were  to  be  reduced 
to  actual  pauperism.  Hence  the  prohibitory  laws  did  not  stop 
at  this  first  outrage ;  almost  impossible  occurrences  were  supposed 
and  provided  for,  lest  there  might  be  a  chance  of  their  realization 
at  some  time.  It  was  actually  provided  that,  if  the  produce  of 
20 


308 


A  CEXTUPwY  OF  GLOOM. 


their  farms  brought  a  greater  profit  to  the  Irish  than  was  ex- 
pected, notwithstanding  all  these  measures  against  the  possible 
occurrence  of  such  an  evil,  the  lease  was  void,  and  the  "  discov- 
erer "  should  receive  the  amount. 

There  was  no  loop-hole  by  which  the  people  might  escape 
from  this  degradation.  But  there  was  still  the  chance  left  of  en- 
gaging in  trade,  acquiring  personal  property  by  its  practice,  and 
becoming  the  owners  of  a  sum  of  money  in  bank,  or  of  a  dwell- 
ing-house in  the  city.  The  English  law  of  succession  was  un- 
derstood to  be  a  law  for  all,  and  consequently,  in  some  out-of-the- 
way  cases,  a  stray  Irish  family  might  be  found  in  course  of  time 
with  an  elder  branch  possessed  of  a  fair  amount  of  property,  and 
able  to  emerge  from  the  dead  level  of  the  common  misery.  Such 
a  possibility  could  not  of  course  be  permitted  by  the  English  col- 
onists who  ruled  the  land.  So  the  law  of  gavelkind,  to  which 
the  Irish  had  at  one  time  been  so  attached,  was  now  to  be  forced 
upon  them,  and  upon  them  alone  of  all  the  British  subjects.  It 
was  decreed  that,  upon  the  death  of  every  Irishman,  whatever  of 
personal  property  he  left  behind  him  was  to  be  divided  equally 
among  all  his  children,  who,  being  generally  numerous,  would 
each  receive  but  a  trifle,  and  so  perpetuate  the  pauperism  of  the 
race. 

Where  the  surprise,  then,  in  finding  the  whole  nation  reduced 
since  that  time  to  a  state  of  the  most  abject  poverty  ?  It  was  the 
will  of  the  rulers  that  so  it  should  be,  and  their  scheme,  guarded 
and  enforced  by  so  many  legislative  acts,  could  not  fail  to  succeed 
in  producing  the  effect  intended.  Granting  even  the  smallest 
amount  of  truth  in  what  is  so  often  flung  at  the  Irish  as  a 
reproach — their  carelessness  and  want  of  foresight — how  could  it 
be  otherwise,  to  what  cause  can  such  failings,  even  if  they  exist, 
be  assigned,  save  to  the  utter  impossibility  of  succeeding  in  any 
effort  which  they  chose  to  make  ? 

The  true  origin  of  the  state  in  which  the  Irish  at  home  now 
appear  to  the  eyes  of  foreign  travellers,  is  the  deliberate  intention, 
sternly  acted  upon  for  more  than  a  century,  to  make  the  island 
one  vast  poorhouse. 

The  wretched  situation  in  which  they  have  ever  since  re- 
mained, confessed  by  all  to  be  without  parallel  on  earth,  is  cer- 
tainly not  to  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  present  population  of 
England,  nor  even  to  the  colony  still  intrenched  on  Irish  soil ; 
but  with  what  right  can  it  be  brought  forward  as  a  reproach 
against  the  Irish  themselves,  when  its  real  cause  is  so  evident, 
and  when  history  speaks  so  plainly  on  the  subject  ? 

All  sensible  Englishmen  of  our  days  will  readily  acknowl- 
edge that,  without  indulging  in  mutual  recrimination,  the  duty 
of  all  is  to  repair  the  injuries  of  the  past,  and  to  do  away  with 
the  last  remnants  of  its  sad  consequences.    Wounds  so  deep  and 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


307 


many  in  a  nation  cannot  be  healed  by  half-measnres  ;  and  it  is 
only  a  thorough  change,  of  system,  and  a  complete  reversal  of 
legislation,  that  can  leave  the  English  of  to-day  without  reproach. 

Pauperism,  then,  is  the  necessary  misfortune,  not  the  crime 
of  Ireland  ;  we  may  even  go  further,  and  assert  that,  if  millions 
of  Irishmen  have  lived  and  died  paupers,  owing  to  the  barbarous 
laws  enacted  for  that  special  purpose,  few  indeed  among  them 
have  been  reduced  even  by  hard  necessity  and  the  extreme  of 
misery  to  manifest  a  pauper  spirit  and  a  miserly  bent. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  almost  invariable  result  of  suffering 
and  want  is  to  create  selfishness  in  the  sufferer,  and  cause  him  to 
cling  desperately  to  the  little  he  may  possess.  Self-preservation 
and  self-indulgence,  in  such  a  case,  form  the  law  of  human  na- 
ture, and  no  one  even  expects  to  find  a  really  poor  man  gener- 
ous, when  he  can  scarcely  meet  his  bare  necessities  and  the  im- 
perious wants  of  his  family.  It  is  the  peculiarity  of  the  Irish  to 
know  how  to  combine  generosity  with  the  deprivation  almost  of 
the  common  necessaries  of  life.  When  masters  of  their  own  soil, 
a  large  hospitality  and  a  free-handed  "  bestowing  of  gifts  " — such, 
we  believe,  was  the  Irish  expression — was  universal  among  them  ; 
the  poorest  clansman  would  have  been  ashamed  not  to  imitate, 
in  his  degree,  the  liberal  spirit  of  his  prince.  They  often  gave 
all  they  had,  regardless  of  the  future  ;  and,  when  their  chieftains 
demanded  of  the  clansmen  what  the  Book  of  Rights  imposed 
upon  them,  their  exclamation  was,  "  Spend  me  but  defend  me." 

Though  the  people  of  Erin  have  been  reduced  to  the  sad 
necessity  of  forgetting  that  old  proverb  of  the  nation,  the  spirit 
which  gave  rise  to  it  lives  in  their  hearts  and  is  proved  by  their 
deeds.  What  other  nation,  even  the  richest  and  most  prosperous, 
could  have  accomplished  what  the  world  has  seen  them  bring  to 
pass  during  this  century  ?  The  laws  which,  so  long  ago,  for- 
bade them  to  be  generous,  and  prohibited  them  from  providing 
openly  for  the  worship  of  their  God,  for  the  education  of  their 
children,  for  the  help  of  the  sick  and  needy  among  them,  have  at 
last  been  made  inoperative  by  their  oppressors.  But,  when  they 
were  at  length  left  free  to  follow  the  freedom  and  generosity  of 
their  hearts,  they  found — what  ?  In  their  once  beautiful  and 
Christian  country,  a  universal  desolation  ;  the  blackened  ruins  of 
what  had  been  their  abbeys,  churches,  hospitals,  and  asylums ; 
the  very  ground  on  which  they  stood  stolen  away  from  them,  and 
the  Protestant  establishment  in  full  enjoyment  of  the  revenues  of 
the  Catholics.  They  found  every  thing  in  the  same  state  that  they 
had  known  for  centuries.  Nothing  was  restored  to  them.  They 
were  at  liberty  to  spend  what  they  did  not  possess,  since  they  were 
as  poor  as  men  could  be.  Every  thing  had  to  be  done  by  them  tow- 
ard the  reestablishing  of  their  churches,  schools,  and  various  asy- 
lums, and  they  had  nothing  wherewith  to  do  it. 


308 


A  CENTUEY  OF  GLOOM. 


There  is  no  need  of  going  item  by  item  over  what  they  did. 
The  present  prosperous  state  of  the  Irish  Catholic  public  institu- 
tions— churches,  schools,  and  all — is  owing  to  their  poorly-filled 
pockets.  God  alone  knows  how  it  all  came  about.  We  can  only 
see  in  them  the  poor  of  Christ,  rich  in  all  gifts,  "  even  alms-deeds 
most  abundant." 

It  is  only  too  evident  that  the  degradation  which  the  English 
wished  to  fasten  upon  them  forever,  could  not  be  accomplished 
even  by  the  measures  best  adapted  to  debase  a  people.  The 
Celtic  nature  rose  superior  to  the  dark  designs  of  the  most  in- 
genious opponents,  and  continued  as  ever  noble,  generous,  and 
open-hearted.  Nevertheless,  the  sufferings  of  the  victims  were 
at  times  unutterable ;  and  one  of  the  inevitable  effects  of  such 
tyrannical  measures  soon  made  itself  fearfully  active  and  destruc- 
tive in  the  shape  of  those  periodical  famines  which  have  ever 
since  devastated  the  island. 

In  the  days  of  her  own  possession,  there  was  never  mention 
of  famine  there.  The  whole  island  teemed  with  the  grain  of  her 
fields,  consumed  by  a  healthy  population,  and  was  alive  with 
vast  herds  of  cattle  and  flocks  of  sheep.  What  were  the  heca- 
tombs of  ancient  Greece  compared  with  the  thousands  of  kine 
prescribed  annually  by  the  Book  of  Rights  %  Who  ever  heard  of 
people  perishing  of  want  in  the  midst  of  abundance  such  as  this? 
Even  during  the  fiercest  wars,  waged  by  clan  against  clan,  we 
often  see  the  image  of  death  in  many  shapes,  but  never  that 
of  a  large  population  reduced  to  roots  and  grass  for  food. 

When,  later  on,  the  wars  of  the  Reformation  transformed 
Munster  into  a  wilderness,  and  we  read  for  the  first  time  in  Irish 
history  of  people  actually  turning  green  and  blue,  according  to 
the  color  of  the  unwholesome  weeds  they  were  driven  to  devour 
in  order  to  support  life,  at  least  it  was  in  the  wake  of  a  terrible 
war  that  famine  came.  It  was  reserved  for  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury to  disclose  to  us  the  woful  spectacle  of  a  people  perishing 
of  starvation  in  the  midst  of  the  profoundest  peace,  frequently  of 
the  greatest  plenty,  the  food  produced  in  abundance  by  the  labor 
of  the  inhabitants  being  sold  and  sent  off  to  foreign  countries  to 
enrich  absentee  landlords.  Nay,  those  desolating  famines  at  last 
grew  to  be  periodical,  so  that  every  few  years  people  expected 
one,  and  it  seemed  as  though  Ireland  were  too  barren  to  produce 
the  barely  sufficient  supply  of  food  necessary  for  her  scanty 
population.  The  people  worked  arduously  and  without  inter- 
mission ;  the  land  was  rich,  the  seasons  propitious  ;  yet  they 
almost  constantly  suffered  the  pangs  of  hunger,  which  spread 
sometimes  to  wholesale  starvation.  This  was  another  result  of 
those  laws  devised  by  the  English  colonists  to  keep  down  the 
native  population  of  the  island,  and  prevent  it  from  becoming 
troublesome  and  dangerous.    Such  was  the  effect  of  the  humane 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM.  309 

measures  taken  to  preserve  the  glory  of  Protestant  ascendency, 
and  secure  the  rights  and  liberties  of  a  handful  of  alien  masters. 
,  It  is  proper  to  describe  some  of  those  awful  scourges,  which 
have  never  ceased  since,  and  at  sight  of  which,  in  our  own  days, 
we  have  too  often  sickened.  For  the  Emancipation  of  1829  was 
far  from  removing  all  the  causes  of  Irish  misery.  On  the  17th 
of  March,  1727,  Boulter,  the  Protestant  Archbishop  of  Armagh, 
wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  :  "  Since  my  arrival  in  this 
country,  the  famine  has  not  ceased  among  the  poor  people.  The 
dearness  of  corn  last  year  was  such  that  thousands  of  families  had 
to  quit  their  dwellings,  to  seek  means  of  life  elsewhere ;  many 
hundred  perished." 

At  the  same  period  Swift  wrote :  "  The  families  of  farmers 
who  pay  great  rents,  live  in  filth  and  nastiness,  on  buttermilk 
and  potatoes." 

The  following  is  a  short  and  simple  description  of  the  famine 
of  1741,  given  by  an  eye-witness,  and  copied  by  Matthew  O'Con- 
nor from  a  pamphlet  entitled  "  Groans  of  Ireland,"  published  in 
the  same  year  : 

"  Having  been  absent  from  this  country  some  years,  on  my 
return  to  it  last  summer,  I  found  it  the  most  miserable  scene  of 
distress  that  I  ever  read  of  in  history.  Want  and  misery  on 
every  face,  the  rich  unable  to  relieve  the  poor,  the  roads  spread 
with  dead  and  dying  bodies ;  mankind  the  color  of  the  docks 
and  nettles  which  they  fed  on ;  two  or  three,  sometimes  more, 
on  a  car,  going  to  the  grave  for  want  of  bearers  to  carry  them, 
and  many  buried  only  in  the  fields  and  ditches  where  they 
perished.  The  universal  scarcity  was  followed  by  fluxes  and 
malignant  fevers,  which  swept  oft*  multitudes  of  all  sorts,  so  that 
whole  villages  were  laid  waste.  If  one  for  every  house  in  the 
kingdom  died — and  that  is  very  probable — the  loss  must  be  up- 
ward of  four  hundred  thousand  souls.  If  only  half,  a  loss  too 
great  for  this  ill-peopled  country  to  bear,  as  they  are  mostly 
working  people.  When  a  stranger  travels  through  this  country, 
and  beholds  its  wide,  extended,  and  fertile  plains,  its  great  flocks 
of  sheep  and  black  cattle,  and  all  its  natural  wealth  and  conven- 
iences for  tillage,  manufacture,  and  trade,  he  must  be  astonished 
that  such  misery  and  want  should  be  felt  by  its  inhabitants." 

At  the  time  these  lines  were  written,  the  astonishment  was 
sincere,  and  the  answer  to  the  question  "  How  can  this  be  V* 
seemed  impossible ;  the  phenomenon  utterly  inexplicable.  In 
our  own  days,  when  this  same  picture  of  woe  has  been  so  often 
presented  in  the  island,  the  reasons  for  it  are  well  known  ;  and 
what  seems  inexplicable  is  that,  the  cause  being  so  clear,  and 
the  remedy  so  simple,  the  remedy  has  not  yet  been  thoroughly 
applied. 

In  1756  and  1757,  the  same  scenes  were  repeated,  with  the 


310 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


same  frightful  results.  Charles  O'Connor,  at  that  time  the  cham- 
pion of  his  much-abused  countrymen,  wrote  thus,  in  his  letter  to 
Dr.  Curry,  May  21,  1756  : 

"  Two-thirds  of  the  inhabitants  are  perishing  for  want  of 
bread ;  meal  is  come  to  eighteen-pence  a  stone,  and,  if  the  poor 
had  money,  it  would  exceed  by — I  believe — double  that  sum. 
Every  place  is  crowded  with  beggars,  who  were  all  house-keepers 
a  fortnight  ago,  and  this  is  the  condition  of  a  country  which 
boasts  of  its  constitution,  its  laws,  and  the  wisdom  of  its  legis- 
lature." 

These  words,  although  sweeping  enough,  and  universally 
applicable,  are  far  from  conveying  to  our  minds,  to-day,  the  real 
picture  of  the  state  of  the  country.  When  the  writer  speaks  of 
"  meal,"  it  must  be  understood  to  mean  rye,  oats,  and,  barley ; 
and  even  this  coarse  and  heavy  food  being,  as  he  remarks,  in- 
accessible to  the  poor,  potatoes  had  become  the  only  hread  of  the 
country,  and  the  inhabitants  were  perishing  for  the  want  of  it. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  two  nations,  the  Eng- 
lish Government  thought  of  relieving  the  distress  of  the  people, 
and  to  this  purpose  applied  the  magnificent  sum  of  twenty 
thousand  pounds.  Such  was  the  generous  amount  granted  by  a 
wealthy  and  prosperous  country  to  procure  food  for  the  inhabi- 
tants of  an  island  as  large  as  Ireland  is  known  to  be.  As  to 
effecting  any  change  in  the  laws,  which  were  really  the  cause  of 
this  unutterable  misery,  such  an  idea  never  entered  into  the 
heads  of  the  legislators.  Hence  it  is  not  surprising  to  hear  that 
"  the  distress  in  the  interior  of  the  country  revived  the  frightful 
image  of  the  miseries  of  1741,  nor  did  the  calamity  cease,  until 
the  equilibrium  between  the  population  and  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence was  restored  by  the  accumulated  waste  of  famine  and 
pestilence  ; "  that  is  to  say,  until  all  those  had  been  destroyed 
whom  the  laws  of  the  time  could,  as  they  had  been  designed 
to  do,  destroy. 

These  details  appear  calculated  only  to  shock  the  feelings  of 
the  reader,  already  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  lot  of  the 
Irish  cottier  and  laborer,  from  the  beginning  of  the  last  century. 
Nevertheless,  we  cannot  close  this  part  of  our  subject  without 
giving  publicity  to  the  following  description  of  the  mass  of  the 
Irish  population  in  1762,  by  Matthew  O'Connor  : 

"  The  popery  laws  had,  in  the  course  of  half  a  century,  con- 
summated the  ruin  of  the  lower  orders.  Their  habitations, 
visages,  dress,  and  despondency,  exhibited  the  deep  distress  of  a 
people  ruled  with  the  iron  sceptre  of  conquest.  The  lot  of  the 
negro  slave,  compared  with  that  of  the  Irish  helot,  was  happiness 
itself.  Both  were  subject  to  the  capricious  cruelty  of  mercenary 
task-masters  and  unfeeling  proprietors  ;  but  the  negro  slave  was 
well-fed,  well  clothed,  and  comfortably  lodged.   The  Irish  peasant 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


311 


was  half  starved,  half  naked,  and  half  housed ;  the  canopy  of 
heaven  being  often  the  only  roof  to  the  mud-built  walls  of  his 
cabin.  The  fewness  of  negroes  gave  the  West  India  proprietor 
an  interest  in  the  preservation  of  his  slave ;  a  superabundance 
of  helots  superseded  all  interest  in  the  comfort  or  preservation  of 
an  Irish  cottier.  The  code  had  eradicated  every  feeling  of 
humanity,  and  avarice  sought  to  stifle  every  sense  of  justice. 
That  avarice  was  generated  by  prodigality,  the  hereditary  vice 
of  the  Irish  gentry,  and  manifested  itself  in  exorbitant  rack- 
rents  wrung  from  their  tenantry,  and  in  the  low  wages  paid  for 
their  labor.  Since  the  days  of  King  William,  the  price  of  the 
necessaries  of  life  had  trebled,  and  the  day's  hire — -fourpence — 
had  continued  stationary.  The  oppression  of  tithes  was  little 
inferior  to  the  tyranny  of  rack-rents  ;  while  the  great  landholder 
was  nearly  exempt  from  this  pressure,  a  tenth  of  the  produce  of 
the  cottier's  labor  was  exacted  for  the  purpose  of  a  religious 
establishment  from  which  he  derived  no  benefit.  .  .  The  peasant 
had  no  resource :  not  trade  or  manufactures — they  were  dis- 
couraged ;  not  emigration  to  France — the  vigilance  of  govern- 
ment precluded  foreign  enlistment ;  not  emigration  to  America 
— his  poverty  precluded  the  means.  Ireland,  the  land  of  his 
birth,  became  his  prison,  where  he  counted  the  days  of  his 
misery  in  the  deepest  despondency." 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  conspiracies,  secret  associations, 
and  insurrections,  were  the  result ;  or  should  the  wonder  be 
that  such  commotions  were  less  universal  and  prolonged  ? 

The  craving  of  hunger  is  perpetual  in  Ireland.  Multitudes 
of  details  from  a  multitude  of  different  and  independent  sources 
might  be  brought  forward  to  show  this. 

Duvergier  de  Hauranne,  a  Frenchman  who  visited  the  island 
in  1826,  writes:  "Ireland  is  the  land  of  anomalies;  the  most 
deplorable  destitution  on  the  richest  of  soils.  .  .  .  Nowhere  does 
man  live  in  such  wretchedness.  The  Irish  peasant  is  born, 
suffers,  and  dies — such  is  life  for  him." 

In  1836,  Dr.  Doyle,  Bishop  of  Kildare,  being  asked  what  was 
the  state  of  the  population,  wrote :  "  What  it  has  always  been ; 
people  are  perishing  as  usual." 

In  1843,  Mr.  Thackeray,  as  little  a  friend  to  Ireland  as  he  was 
a  foe  to  his  own  country,  recounting  what  he  saw  in  his  travels, 
said  that,  in  the  south  and  west  of  the  island,  the  traveller  had 
before  him  the  spectacle  of  a  people  dying  of  hunger,  and  that 
by  millions,  in  the  very  richest  counties. 

There  is  no  need  ot  repeating  what  has  been  written  of  the 
fearful  scourge  that  swept  over  the  country  in  1846  and  1847. 
The  details  are  too  harrowing.  At  last  even  the  London  Times 
had  to  acknowledge  the  cause  of  these  calamities :  "  The  ulcer 
of  Ireland  drains  the  resources  of  the  empire.    It  was  to  be  ex- 


312 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


pected  that  it  should  be  so.  The  people  of  England  have  most 
culpably  and  foolishly  connived  at  a  national  iniquity.  Without 
going  back  beyond  the  Union  (in  1800),  and  only  within  the  last 
half-century,  it  has  been  notorious  all  that  time  that  Ireland 
was  the  victim  of  an  unexampled  social  crime.  The  landlords 
exercise  their  rights  there  with  a  hand  of  iron,  and  deny  their 
duty  with  a  brow  of  brass.  Age,  infirmity,  sickness,  every  weak- 
ness, is  there  condemned  to  death.  The  whole  Irish  people  is 
debased  by  the  spectacle  and  contact  of  beggars  and  of  those  who 
notoriously  die  of  hunger ;  and  England  stupidly  winked  at  this 
tyranny.  We  begin  now  to  expiate  a  long  course  of  neglect. 
Such  is  the  law  of  justice.  If  we  are  asked  wmy  we  have  to  sup- 
port half  the  population  of  Ireland,  the  answer  lies  in  the  ques- 
tion itself ;  it  is  that  we  have  deliberately  allowed  them  to  be 
crushed  into  a  nation  of  beggars  !  " 

The  writers  of  the  Times  laid  the  true  cause  of  that  appalling 
misfortune  at  the  door  of  the  landlords.  They  would  not  trace 
back  the  origin  of  the  evil  beyond  1800 :  they  could  not  or 
would  not  appreciate  the  Christian  heroism  displayed  by  the  na- 
tion while  under  the  infliction  of  such  a  fatal  scourge.  But  it 
must  not  be  forgotten  by  all  admirers  of  virtue  that,  in  the 
midst  of  a  distress  which  baffles  description,  many  of  the  victims 
of  famine  were  at  the  same  time  martyrs  to  honesty  and  faith. 
"  Come  here  and  let  us  die  together,"  said  a  wife  to  her  husband, 
"  rather  than  touch  what  belongs  to  another." 

The  civil  right  of  acquiring  land  and  enjoying  its  products 
has  so  far  been  the  only  one  considered  by  us  ;  and  the  subject 
has  been  entered  upon  at  some  length,  as  agriculture  has  at  all 
times  formed  the  chief  occupation  of  the  Irish  people.  But  the 
penal  laws  embraced  many  other  objects ;  and,  as  their  intent 
was  evidently  to  debase  the  people  and  reduce  it  to  a  state  of  act- 
ual slavery  and  want,  other  civil  rights  were  equally  invaded  by 
their  tyrannical  provisions. 

A  portion  of  the  population  in  all  countries  devotes  itself  to 
the  intellectual  pursuits  necessary  for  the  life  of  every  cultivated 
nation.  Whoever  chooses  must  have  the  right  of  devoting  his 
life  to  the  professions  of  medicine  and  law,  of  entering  the  Church 
or  the  army,  if  his  tastes  run  in  any  one  of  those  directions. 
Not  so  in  Catholic  Ireland.  The  oath  to  be  taken  by  every  bar- 
rister prevented  the  Catholic  Irishman  from  devoting  his  powers 
to  such  a  purpose.  There  was  only  one  Church  for  him,  and 
that  one  proscribed.  In  the  army  not  only  could  he  not  attain 
to  any  rank,  but  he  was  not  allowed  to  enter  it  even  as  a  private, 
the  holding  of  a  musket  being  prohibited  to  him.  So  that, 
through  mere  fanatical  hatred  of  every  thing  Catholic,  England 
deprived  herself  for  a  whole  century  of  the  services  of  a  people, 
forming  to-day  more  than  half  of  her  army  and  navy,  whose 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


313 


efforts  have  helped  to  cover  her  flag  with  honor,  and  whose  mem- 
orable absence  from  the  English  ranks  at  Fontenoy  wrung  that 
bitter  expression  from  the  heart  of  George  II.  when  the  victori- 
ous tide  of  the  English  battle  was  rolled  back  by  the  Irish  bri- 
gade, "  Cursed  be  the  laws  which  deprive  me  of  such  subjects ! " 

These  few  words  are  enough  to  show  that  the  penal  laws 
were  in  reality  a  decree  of  outlawry  against  the  Irish  —  stamp- 
ing them,  not  as  true  subjects,  but  as  mere  slaves  and  helots,  fit 
only  to  be  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  at  the  bidding 
of  their  lords  and  masters. 

But  there  are  mere  human  rights,  inalienable  in  man,  and 
sacred  among  all  nations,  which  were  trampled  upon  in  that  des- 
olated land  together  with  all  inferior  rights.  Such  are  the  rights 
of  worshipping  God,  of  properly  educating  children,  of  preserv- 
ing a  just  subordination  in  the  family  and  promoting  harmony 
and  happiness  among  its  members.  These  natural  rights  were 
more  openly  and  shamelessly  violated,  if  that  were  possible,  than 
all  others ;  and  this  in  itself  would  have  made  the  eighteenth 
century  one  of  gloom  and  woe  for  Irishmen. 

It  was  for  their  religion  chiefly  that  the  Irish  had  undergone 
all  the  calamities  and  scourges  which  have  been  described.  Had 
they  only,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  Reformation,  bowed  to 
the  new  dogma  of  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  English  kings ; 
had  they  a  little  later  accepted  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  ;  had  they,  at  a  subsequent  epoch,  joined  in  chorus 
with  the  Scotch  Presbyterians,  and  given  the  Bible  as  their  au- 
thority for  all  kinds  of  absurdities  and  atrocities,  mental  and 
moral ;  had  they,  in  a  word,  as  they  remarked  to  Sussex,  changed 
their  religion  four  times  in  twelve  years,  they  would  have  es- 
caped the  wrath  of  Henry  VIII.,  the  crafty  and  cruel  policy  of 
Elizabeth,  the  shifty  expediency  of  the  Stuarts,  the  barbarity  of 
the  Cromwellian  era,  and  finally  the  ingenious  atrocities  of  the 
penal  laws. 

Even  if,  in  the  midst  of  some  of  the  extremities  to  which 
they  had  been  reduced,  they  had  at  any  time  resolved  to  conform 
and  take  the  oaths  prescribed,  all  their  miseries  would  have  been 
at  an  end,  and  their  immediate  admission  to  all  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  British  citizens  secured.  From  time  to  time,  in  in- 
dividual cases,  they  witnessed  the  sudden  and  magical  effect  pro- 
duced by  conformity  on  the  part  of  those  who  gave  up  resistance 
altogether,  and  who,  from  whatever  motive,  bowed  to  the  inevi- 
table conditions  on  which  men  were  admitted  to  live  peaceably  on 
Irish  soil,  and  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  blessings  of  this  life ; 
such  condition  being — the  abjuration  of  Catholicity.  But  so  few 
were  found  to  take  advantage  of  this  easy  chance  forever  held 
out  to  them,  that  a  man  might  well  wonder  at  their  constancy 
did  he  not  reflect  that  they  set  their  duty  to  God  above  all 


314 


A  CEXTUEY  OF  GLOOM. 


things.  The  fact  is  patent  —  they  had  a  conscience,  and  knew 
what  it  meant. 

Having  then  surrendered  their  all  for  the  sake  of  their  reli- 
gion, the  tree  exercise  of  that  might  at  least  have  been  left  them  ; 
and  since  the  choice  lay  between  the  two  alternatives  of  enjoying 
the  natural  right  of  worshipping  their  God  or  submitting  to  all 
the  sacrifices  previously  mentioned  (seemingly  the  meaning  of 
the  various  oaths  prescribed  by  law),  it  can  only  be  looked  upon 
as  an  additional  cruelty  to  violently  deprive  them  of  what  they 
chose  to  preserve  at  all  cost.  But  the  authors  of  the  statutes  did 
not  see  the  matter  in  this  light.  They  could  not  lose  such  an 
opportunity  of  inflicting  new  tortures  on  their  victims ;  on  the 
contrary,  they  would  have  considered  all  their  labor  lost  had 
they  not  endeavored  to  coerce  the  very  thing  least  subject  to  co- 
ercion, the  religious  feeling  of  the  human  soul.  Accordingly, 
the  resolution  was  taken  to  deprive  them  of  every  possible  facil- 
ity for  the  exercise  of  their  religion,  that  the  fire  within  might 
give  no  sign  of  its  warmth. 

True,  the  Irish  Catholics  were  not,  as  the  Christians  under 
the  edicts  of  old  Rome,  to  be  summoned  before  the  public  courts 
and  there  abjure  their  religion  or  die.  It  is  strange  that  the 
rulers  of  Ireland  stopped  short  at  this ;  that  they  invented 
nothing  in  their  laws  at  least  equivalent,  unless  the  statutes  that 
compelled  every  person  under  fine  to  be  present  at  Protestant 
worship  on  Sundays  be  interpreted  to  mean,  what  it  very  much 
resembles,  an  attempt  at  coercion  of  the  very  soul.  Still  there 
was  no  edict  openly  proscribing  the  name  of  Catholic,  and  pun- 
ishing its  bearer  with  death. 

But  the  measures  adopted  and  actually  enforced  were  in 
reality  equivalent,  and  would  more  effectually  than  any  pagan 
edict  have  produced  the  same  result,  if  the  Irish  race  had  shown 
the  least  wavering  in  their  traditional  steadiness  of  purpose. 

The  first  of  the  measures  devised  for  this  end  would  have 
been  completely  efficacious  with  any  other  people  or  race.  It 
was  a  twofold  measure  :  1.  All  bishops,  priests,  and  monks,  were 
to  depart  from  the  kingdom,  liable  to  capital  punishment  should 
they  return.  2.  All  laymen  were  to  be  compelled  to  assist  at 
the  Protestant  service  every  Sunday,  under  penalty  of  a  fine  for 
each  offence :  the  fine  mounting  with  the  repetition  of  the 
offence,  so  that,  in  the  end,  it  would  reach  an  enormous  sum. 
Only  let  such  a  policy  as  this  be  persevered  in  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  in  any  country  on  earth  except  Ireland,  and,  in  that 
country,  the  Catholic  religion  will  cease  to  exist. 

"  T?he  Catholic  clergy,"  says  Matthew  O'Connor — and  the 
reader  will  remember  he  was  a  witness  of  what  he  described — 
"  submitted  to  their  hard  destiny  with  Christian  resignation. 
They  repaired  to  the  seaport  towns  fixed  for  their  embarcation, 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


315 


and  took  an  everlasting  farewell  of  their  country  and  friends,  of 
every  thing  dear  and  valuable  in  this  world.  Many  of  them 
were  descending  in  the  vale  of  years,  and  must  have  been 
anxious  to  deposit  their  bones  with  the  ashes  of  their  ancestors ; 
they  were  now  transported  to  foreign  lands,  where  they  would 
find  no  fond  breast  to  rely  upon,  no  '  pious  tear'  to  attend  their 
obsequies.  Yet  their  enemies  could  not  deprive  them  of  the 
consolations  of  religion  :  that  first-born  offspring  of  Heaven  still 
cheered  them  in  adversity  and  exile,  smoothed  the  rugged  path 
of  death,  and  closed  their  last  faltering  accents  with  benedic- 
tions on  their  country,  and  prayers  for  their  persecutors. 

"  Such  as  were  apprehended  after  the  time  limited  for  depor- 
tation, were  loaded  with  irons  and  imprisoned  until  transported, 
to  attest,  on  some  foreign  shore,  the  weakness  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  the  cruelty  of  their  countrymen.  Some  few,  disabled 
from  age  and  infirmities  from  emigration,  sought  shelter  in 
caves,  or  implored  and  received  the  concealment  of  Protestants, 
whose  humane  feelings  were  superior  to  their  prejudices,  and 
who  atoned,  in  a  great  degree,  by  their  generous  sympathy,  for 
the  wanton  cruelty  of  their  party. 

"  The  clause  infiicting  the  punishment  of  death  on  such  as 
should  return  from  exile  was  suited  only  for  the  sanguinary  days 
of  Tiberius  or  Domitian,  and  shocked  the  humanity  of  an  en- 
lightened age.  William  of  Orange,  whose  necessities  compelled 
him  to  give  his  sanction  to  the  clause,  would  never  consent  to 
its  execution." 

Nevertheless,  it  was  afterward  enforced  on  several  occasions, 
and,  during  the  whole  century  of  penal  laws,  it  not  only  remained 
on  the  statute-book  ad  terrorem,  but  whatever  clegyman  disre- 
garded it  could  only  expect  to  be  treated  with  its  utmost  rigor. 
From  Captain  South's  account,  it  appears  that  in  1698  the  num- 
ber of  clergy  in  Ireland  consisted  of  four  hundred  and  ninety-five 
regulars  and  eight  hundred  and  ninety-two  seculars ;  and  the 
number  of  regulars  shipped  off  that  year  to  foreign  parts 
amounted  to  four  hundred  and  twenty-four — namely,  from 
Dublin,  one  hundred  and  fifty-three ;  from  Galway,  one  hundred 
and  ninety ;  from  Cork,  seventy-five ;  and  twenty-six  from 
Waterford. 

But  such  a  measure  was  of  too  sweeping  a  character  to  be 
carried  out  to  the  letter  ;  many  of  the  proscribed  priests,  seculars 
for  the  most  part,  escaped  the  pursuit  of  the  government  spies, 
and  remained  concealed  in  the  country.  The  bishops  had  all 
been  obliged  to  fly ;  but  a  few  years  later,  under  Anne,  several 
returned,  for  they  knew  that,  without  the  exercise  of  their  reli- 
gious functions,  the  Catholic  religion  must  have  perished ;  and, 
m  order  that  they  might  continue  the  succession  of  the  priest- 
hood, confirm  the  children,  and  encourage  the  people  to  stand 


316 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOil. 


firm  in  their  faith,  they  ran  the  hazard  of  the  gibbet.  Of  this 
fact  the  persecutors  soon  became  aware,  and  the  Commons  of 
Ireland  declared  openly  that  "  several  popish  bishops  had  lately 
come  into  the  kingdom,  and  exercised  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction 
within  the  same,  and  continued  the  succession  of  the  Romish 
priesthood  by  ordaining  great  numbers  of  popish  clergymen,  and 
that  their  return  was  owing  to  defect  in  the  laws." 

To  cover  this  defect,  they  invented  the  "  registry  law."  They 
did  not  state  in  express  terms  their  intention  of  exporting  them 
again,  but  their  object  was  clearly  manifested  by  the  subsequent 
enactment  of  1704.  By  the  registry  law  "  all  popish  priests  then 
in  the  kingdom  should,  at  the  general  quarter  sessions  in  each 
county,  register  their  places  of  abode,  age,  parishes,  and  time  of 
ordination,  the  names  of  the  respective  bishops  who  ordained 
them,  and  give  security  for  their  constant  residence  in  their 
respective  districts,  under  penalty  of  imprisonment  and  trans- 
portation, and  of  being  treated  as  '  high  traitors '  in  case  of 
return." 

It  is  clear  that,  with  the  execution  of  this  law,  the  exertions 
of  the  police  and  of  informers  would  have  been  superfluous,  as 
the  clergy  were  compelled  to  act  as  their  own  police  and  inform 
on  themselves.  The  act,  moreover,  seems  to  have  been  prepared 
with  a  view  to  another  bill,  which  was  soon  after  passed,  for 
total  expulsion.  It  was  therefore  nothing  else  than  a  prelimi- 
nary measure  devised  to  insure  the  success  of  this  second  act,  and 
prevent  the  recurrence  of  the  former  "  defect  in  the  laws." 

A  new  explanatory  statute  was  accordingly  drawn  up,  re- 
quiring the  clergy  to  take  the  oath  of  abjuration  before  the  23d 
of  March,  1710,  under  the  penalties  of  transportation  for  life,  and 
of  high-treason  if  ever  after  found  in  the  country.  This  bill, 
then,  set  them  the  alternative  of  abandoning  either  their  country 
or  their  principles. 

At  the  same  time,  for  the  encouragement  of  informers,  the 
Commons  resolved  that  "the  prosecuting  and  informing  against 
papists  was  an  honorable  service."  Never  before  had  a  like 
declaration  issued  from  any  body  in  any  nation,  least  of  all  by 
legislators,  in  favor  of  the  confessedly  meanest  of  all  occupations  ; 
and  it  is  doubtful  if  the  most  tyrannical  of  the  Roman  Caesars 
would  ever  have  thought  of  mentioning  the  "  honorable  service  n 
of  the  delatores  whom  they  employed  for  the  speedy  destruction 
of  those  whose  wealth  they  coveted.  "  Genus  hominvm"  says 
Tacitus,  "publico  exitio  repertum" 

While  on  this  subject,  it  has  been  remarked  that  most  of 
the  Irish  informers  amassed  wealth  by  their  bills  of  "  discovery," 
whereas  those  of  the  days  of  Tiberius  generally  fell  victims  to 
their  own  artifices. 

The  eagerness  for  blood-money  tracked  the  clergy  to  their 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


317 


loneliest  retreats,  and  dragged  them  thence  before  persecuting 
tribunals,  by  whose  sentence  they  were  doomed  to  perpetual 
banishment.  They  must  all  have  finally  disappeared  from  the 
island,  if  the  people,  at  last  grown  indignant  at  such  baseness 
and  cruelty,  had  not,  by  the  loudness  of  their  execrations, 
checked  the  activity  of  the  priest -hunters.  Wherever  they  dared 
show  themselves,  they  were  pelted  with  stones,  and  exposed  to 
the  summary  vengeance  of  a  maddened  people. 

The  detestable  "profession."  became  at  last  so  infamous  and 
unprofitable  that  foreign  Jews  were  almost  the  only  ones  found 
willing  to  undertake  this  "  honorable  service  ; "  and  it  is  stated 
in  the  "Historia  Dominicana,"  that  one  Garzia,  a  Portuguese 
Jew,  was  the  most  active  of  those  human  blood-hounds,  and 
that,  in  1718,  he  contrived  to  have  seven  of  the  proscribed  clergy 
detected  and  apprehended. 

We  cannot  speak  of  the  most  revolting  measure  ever  in- 
tended to  be  taken  against  Catholic  priests ;  namely  mutilation, 
so  long  and  with  such  energy  denied  by  Protestants,  who  were 
themselves  indignant  at  the  mere  mention  of  it,  but  now  clearly 
proved  by  the  archives  of  France,  where  documents  exist  show- 
ing that  the  non-enactment  of  such  an  infamy  was  solely  due 
to  the  severe  words  of  remonstrance  sent  to  England  by  the 
Duke  of  Orleans,  regent'  of  France  during  the  minority  of 
Louis  XY. 

As  late  as  the  middle  of  the  century,  in  1744,  a  sudden  in- 
crease of  rigor  took  place  ;  intentions  of  conspiracy  were  as- 
cribed to  Catholics  as  usual,  and  without  any  motive  whatever, 
unless  it  was  caused  by  the  sight  of  some  religious  houses,  which 
had  been  quietly  and  unobtrusively  reopened  during  the  few 
years  previous.  All  at  once  the  government  issued  a  proclama- 
tion for  "  the  suppression  of  monasteries,  the  apprehension  of 
ecclesiastics,  the  punishment  of  magistrates  remiss  in  the  execu- 
tion of  the  laws,  and  the  encouragement  of  spies  and  informers 
by  an  increase  of  reward." 

It  was  a  repetition  of  the  old  story ;  a  cruel  persecution  broke 
out  in  every  part  of  the  island.  From  the  country  priests  fled 
to  the  metropolis,  seeking  to  hide  themselves  amid  the  multitude 
of  its  citizens.  Others  fled  to  mountains  and  caverns,  and  the 
holy  sacrifice  was  again  offered  up  in  lone  places  under  the  bare 
heavens,  with  sentinels  to  watch  for  the  "  prowling  of  the  wolf," 
and  no  other  outward  dignity  than  that  the  grandeur  of  the  for- 
est and  the  rugged  mountains  gave. 

In  the  cities  the  Catholics  assisted  at  the  celebration  of  the 
divine  mysteries  in  stable-yards,  garrets,  and  such  obscure 
places  as  sheltered  them  from  the  pursuit  of  the  magistrates. 
On  one  occasion,  while  the  congregation  (assembled  in  an  old 
building)  was  kneeling  to  receive  the  benediction,  the  floor 


318 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


fave  way,  and  all  were  buried  beneath  the  ruin  ;  many  were 
illed,  the  priest  among  others ;  some  were  maimed  for  life,  and 
remained  to  the  end  of  their  lives  monuments  of  the  cruelty  of 
the  government.  The  dead  and  dying,  and  the  wounded,  were 
carried  through  the  streets  on  carts ;  and  the  sad  spectacle  at 
last  moved  the  Protestants  themselves  to  sympathy.  The  govern- 
ment was  compelled  to  give  way,  and  allow  the  persecuted  Catho- 
lics to  enjoy  without  further  molestation  the  private  exercise  of 
their  religion. 

But  that  this  was  not  a  willing  concession  on  the  part  of  the 
reigning  power  is  manifest  enough  from  the  steady,  unswerving, 
contrary  policy  pursued  until  that  time.  It  was  simply  forced 
to  give  way  to  outraged  public  opinion,  then  openly  opposed 
throughout  Europe  to  persecution  for  conscience'  sake. 

With  religion  education  was  also  proscribed.  Already,  under 
William  of  Orange,  had  papist  school- masters  been  forbidden  to 
teach,  but  the  penalty  of  their  disobedience  to  the  law  did  not  go 
beyond  a  fine  of  a  few  pounds.  So  that  the  Irish  youth  could 
still,  with  some  precautionary  prudence,  find  teachers  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  languages,  of  mathematics,  history,  and  geogra- 
phy. In  Munster  particularly  schools  and  academies  of  literature 
flourished  ;  the  ardor  of  the  people  for  the  acquirement  of  knowl- 
edge could  not  be  balked  by  such  paltry  obstacles  as  the  laws  of 
William  in. 

But  the  Irish  Parliament  under  Anne  could  not  rest  satisfied 
with  such  mild  measures.  By  the  "Explanatory  Act"  of  1710, 
the  school-master  in  Ireland  was  subjected  to  the  same  punish- 
ment as  the  priest  whom  he  accompanied  everywhere.  Prison, 
transportation,  death  itself,  became  the  reward  of  teaching.  And 
in  proportion  as  other  laws,  severer  yet,  prevented  the  people 
from  sending  their  children  abroad  to  be  educated,  and  these 
laws  were  renewed  occasionally  and  made  more  stringent  and 
effective,  the  result  was  the  total  impossibility  of  Catholic  chil- 
dren receiving  any  education  higher  than  that  of  the  house. 

The  final  result  is  known  to  all.  The  "hedge-school"  was 
established,  that  being  the  only  way  left  of  imparting  elementary 
knowledge  ;  and  it  required  Irish  ingenuity  and  Irish  aptitude 
for  shifts  to  invent  such  a  system,  for  system  it  was,  and  carry 
it  through  for  so  long  a  time. 

But  even  the  last  sanctuary  of  home  was  yet  to  be  sacrilegi- 
ously invaded ;  the  most  sacred  of  human  rights  could  not  be 
left  to  the  persecuted  people,  and  the  strongest  bonds  of  family 
affection  were  if  possible  to  be  broken  asunder.  What  tyranny 
had  never  yet  dared  attempt  in  any  age  or  country  was  to  be- 
come a  law  in  Ireland  ;  and  that  holy  feeling  by  which  the  mem- 
bers of  a  family  are  held  together,  in  obedience  to  one  of  the 
most  necessary  and  solemn  commandments  of  God,  could  not  be 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


319 


left  undisturbed  in  the  bosom  of  an  Irish  child.  The  father's 
rule  over  his  children  and  the  honor  and  love  due  by  the  child 
to  its  parent,  were,  in  fact,  declared  by  English  legislation  of  no 
value,  and  fit  subjects  for  cruel  interference,  introducing  irresisti- 
ble temptation. 

Yes,  by  the  laws  enacted  in  the  reign  of  Anne,  the  son  was  to 
be  set  against  the  father,  and  this  for  the  sake  of  religion !  It 
was  a  part  of  the  Irish  statutes,  and  for  a  long  time  it  took  occa- 
sional effect,  that  any  son  of  a  Catholic  who  should  turn  Protes- 
tant at  any  age,  even  the  tenderest,  should  alone  succeed  to  the 
family  estate,  which  from  the  day  of  the  son's  conversion  could 
neither  be  sold  nor  charged  even  with  a  debt  of  legacy.  From 
that  same  day  the  son  was  taken  from  his  father's  roof  and  deliv- 
ered into  the  custody  of  some  Protestant  guardian.  No  tie,  how- 
ever sacred,  no  claim,  however  dear,  was  respected  by  those  states- 
men, who  at  the  very  time  were  the  loudest  to  boast  of  their 
love  for  freedom,  while  trampling  under  foot  the  most  indispen- 
sable rights  of  Nature. 

The  wickedest  ingenuity  of  man  could  certainly  not  go  be- 
yond this  to  debase,  degrade,  and  destroy  a  nation.  After  un- 
precedented calamities  of  former  ages,  we  find  millions  of  men 
reduced  by  other  men,  calling  themselves  Christians,  to  a  condi- 
tion of  pagan  helots,  deprived  of  all  rights  and  treated  more 
barbarously  than  slaves.  And  all  the  while  they  were  allowed, 
induced,  encouraged  to  put  an  end  to  their  misery  by  simply  say- 
ing one  word,  taking  one  oath,  "  conforming  "  as  the  expression 
had  it.  Nevertheless  they  steadily  refused  to  speak  that  word,  to 
take  that  oath,  to  conform  ;  that  is  to  say,  to  abjure  their  religion. 
A  few,  weak  in  faith,  or  carried  away  by  sudden  passion,  a  burst 
of  despair,  subscribe  to  the  required  oath,  assist  as  demanded  at 
the  religious  services  on  Sunday,  suddenly  rise  to  distinction,  are 
sure  of  preserving  their  wealth,  or  even  enter  into  sole  possession 
of  the  family  property,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  its  other  members. 
But  such  rare  examples,  instead  of  rousing  the  envy  of  the  rest, 
excite  only  their  contempt  and  execration.  To  them  they  are 
henceforth  apostates,  renegades  to  their  faith,  cast  out  from  the 
bosom  of  the  nation ;  and  their  countrymen  hug  their  misery 
rather  than  exchange  it  for  honors  and  wealth  purchased  by 
broken  honor,  lost  faith,  and  cowardly  desertion  of  the  cause  for 
which  their  country  was  what  it  was. 

While  the  cowards  were  so  few,  and  the  brave  men  so  many, 
the  latter  constituting  indeed  the  whole  bulk  of  the  people,  they 
were  knit  together  as  a  band  of  brethren,  never  to  be  estranged 
from  each  other.  If  any  thing  is  calculated  to  form  a  nation,  to 
give  it  strength,  to  render  it  indestructible,  imperishable,  it 
is  undoubtedly  the  ordeal  through  which  they  passed  without 
shrinking,  and  out  of  which  they  came  with  one  mind,  one  pur- 


320 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


pose,  animated  by  one  holy  feeling,  the  love  of  their  religion, 
and  the  determination  to  keep  it  at  all  hazard. 

Yes,  at  any  moment  throughout  this  long  century,  they  might 
have  changed  their  condition  and  come  out  at  once  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  all  the  rights  dear  to  men,  by  what  means  is  best  ex- 
pressed in  the  few  words  of  Edmund  Burke  : 

"  Let  three  millions  of  people  "  (the  number  of  Irishmen  at 
the  time  he  spoke)  "  but  abandon  all  that  they  and  their  ances- 
tors have  been  taught  to  believe  sacred,  and  forswear  it  publicly 
in  terms  most  degrading,  scurrilous,  and  indecent,  for  men  of  in- 
tegrity and  virtue,  and  abuse  the  whole  of  their  former  lives,  and 
slander  the  education  they  have  received,  and  nothing  more  is 
required  of  them.  There  is  no  system  of  folly,  or  impiety,  or 
blasphemy,  or  atheism,  into  which  they  may  not  throw  them- 
selves, and  which  they  may  not  profess  openly  and  as  a  system, 
consistently  with  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  privileges  of  a  free 
citizen  in  the  happiest  constitution  in  the  world." 

Thus  does  the  reason  of  man  commend  their  constancy ;  but 
that  constancy  required  something  more  than  human  strength. 
God  it  was  who  snpported  them.  He  alone  could  grant  power 
of  will  strong  enough  to  uphold  men  plunged  for  so  long  a  time 
in  such  an  abyss  of  wretchedness.  To  him  could  they  cry  out 
with  truth  :  "  It  is  only  owing  to  Divine  mercy  that  we  have  not 
perished  ;  "  misericord ias  Domini^  quod  non  sumus  consumpti  ! 

But  human  reason  can  better  comprehend  the  effect  pro- 
duced on  a  vast  multitude  of  people  by  oppression  so  unexam- 
pled in  its  severity.  An  immense  development  of  manhood  and 
self-dependence,  an  heroic  determination  to  bear  every  trial  for 
conscience'  sake,  and  a  certainty  of  succeeding,  in  the  long-run, 
in  breaking  the  heavy  chain  and  casting  off  the  intolerable  yoke 
— such  was  the  effect. 

It  has  been  asserted  by  some  authors,  who  have  written  on 
that  terrible  eighteenth  century  in  Ireland,  that  the  spirit  of  the 
people  was  entirely  broken,  that  there  was  no  energy  left  among 
them,  and  that  the  imposition  of  burdens  heavier  still,  were  such 
a  thing  possible,  could  scarcely  elicit  from  them  even  the  sem- 
blance of  remonstrance.  It  was  only  natural  to  think  so  ;  but, 
in  our  opinion,  this  is  only  true  of  the  external  despondency  un- 
der which  the  people  was  bowed,  but  utterly  false  with  respect 
to  a  lack  of  mental  energy. 

There  certainly  was  no  general  attempt  at  insurrection  on 
their  part ;  nor  did  they  take  refuge  in  that  last  resource  of  de- 
spair—death after  a  vain  vengeance.  If  the  writers  referred  to 
would  have  preferred  this  last  fatal  resource  of  wounded  pride, 
they  are  right  in  their  estimate  of  the  Irish  ;  but  they  forget  that 
the  victims  were  Christians,  and  could  lend  no  ear  to  a  ven- 
geance which  is  futile  and  a  despair  which  is  forbidden.  There 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


321 


was  a  better  course  open  before  them,  and  they  followed  it :  to 
resign  themselves  to  the  will  of  a  God  they  believed  in  and  for 
whom  they  suffered,  and  wait  patiently  for  the  day  of  deliver- 
ance. It  was  sure  to  come ;  and  if  those  then  living  were 
doomed  not  to  see  that  happy  day,  they  knew  that  they  would 
leave  it  as  an  inheritance  to  their  children. 

Those  writers  would  doubtless  have  been  satisfied  of  the 
existence  of  a  will  among  the  people,  and  their  conduct  would 
have  met  with  greater  approval,  had  the  attempts  of  some  indi- 
viduals at  private  revenge  been  more  general  and  successful ;  if 
the  bands  of  Papparees,  White  Boys,  and  others,  had  wrought 
more  evil  upon  their  oppressors,  although  they  could  not  prepare 
them  to  renew  the  struggle  on  a  large  scale  with  better  prospect 
of  success. 

But  this  could  not  be  ;  success  could  never  have  been  reached 
by  such  a  road,  and  it  was  useless  to  attempt  it.  At  that  time, 
there  existed  no  possibility  of  the  Irish  recovering  their  rights 
by  force.  Meanwhile  Providence  was  not  forgetful  of  those  who 
were  fighting  the  braver  moral  battle  of  suffering  and  endurance 
for  their  religion.  It  was  preparing  the  nation  for  a  future  life 
of  great  purposes,  by  purifying  it  in  the  crucible  of  affliction,  and 
preserving  the  people  pure  and  undebased. 

Nowhere  has  the  period  of  calamity  been  so  protracted  and 
so  severe.  Ireland  stands  alone  in  a  history  of  wretchedness  of 
seven  centuries'  duration.  She  stands  alone,  particularly  inas- 
much as,  with  her,  the  affliction  has  gone  on  continually  increasing 
until  quite  recently,  unrefreshed  by  periods  of  relief  and  glimpses 
of  bright  hope.  The  sinking  spirits  of  the  people,  it  is  true,  have 
been  buoyed  up  from  time  to  time  by  sanguine  expectations ; 
but  only  to  find  their  expectations  crowned  with  bitter  disap- 
pointment and  sink  deeper  again  in  the  sea  of  their  afflictions. 

Nevertheless,  through  all  that  time  the  Irish  continued  moral- 
ly strong,  and  ready  at  the  right  moment  to  leap  into  the  stature 
of  giants  in  strength  and  resolution.  How  they  did  so  will  be 
seen,  and  the  simplicity  of  the  explanation  will  be  matter  for 
surprise.  But  it  is  fitting  first  to  set  in  the  strongest  light  the 
assertion  that  the  Irish  were  really  debased  by  the  calamities  of 
that  age,  that  they  possessed  no  self-dependence  at  a  time  when 
that  was  the  only  thing  left  to  them. 

This  view  is  thus  expressed  in  Godkin*  s  "  History  of  Ireland  : " 
"  Too  well  did  the  penal  code  accomplish  its  dreadful  work  of 
debasement  on  the  intellects,  morals,  and  physical  condition  of  a 
people  sinking  in  degeneracy  from  age  to  age,  till  all  manly 
spirit,  all  virtuous  sense  of  personal  independence  and  respon- 
sibility was  nearly  extinct,  and  the  very  features — vacant,  timid, 
running,  and  unreflective — betrayed  the  crouching  slave  within." 

And  the  writer,  a  well-disposed  Protestant,  did  not  see  how 
21 


322 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


it  could  well  be  otherwise,  and  took  it  for  granted  that  every  one 
would  admit  the  truth  of  his  assertions  without  the  slightest 
hesitation. 

For  he  adds,  a  little  farther  on  :  "  Having  no  rights  of  fran- 
chise— no  legal  protection  of  life  or  property — disqualified  to 
handle  a  gun,  even  as  a  common  soldier  or  a  game-keeper — 
forbidden  to  acquire  the  elements  of  knowledge  at  home  or 
abroad — forbidden  even  to  render  to  God  what  conscience 
dictated  as  his  due — what  could  the  Irish  be  but  abject  serfs  ? 
What  nature  in  their  circumstances  could  have  been  otherwise  ? 
Is  it  not  amazing  that  any  social  virtue  could  have  survived  such 
an  ordeal — that  any  seeds  of  good,  any  roots  of  national  great- 
ness, could  have  outlived  such  a  long  tempestuous  winter  ?  " 

Still  Mr.  Godkin  was  mistaken ;  the  Irish  had  suffered  no 
"  debasement  of  the  intellects,  of  the  morals,  not  even  of  the 
physical  condition,"  notwithstanding  the  plenitude  of  causes 
existing  to  bring  such  results  about. 

Their  intellect  had  been  kept  in  ignorance.  Unable  to  pro 
care  instruction  for  their  children,  except  by  stealth  and  in 
opposition  to  the  laws,  few  of  them  could  acquire  even  the  first 
elements  of  mental  culture.  But  the  intellect  of  a  nation  is  not 
necessarily  debased  on  that  account.  As  a  general  rule,  it  is  true 
that  ignorance  begets  mental  darkness  and  error,  and  will  often 
debase  the  mind  and  sink  the  intellectual  faculties  to  the  lowest 
human  level.  But  this  happens  only  to  people  who,  having  no 
religious  substratum  to  rest  upon,  are  left  at  the  mercy  of  error 
and  delusions.  One  great  thought,  at  least,  was  ever  present 
to  their  minds,  and  that  thought  was  in  itself  sufficient  to  preserve 
their  intellect  from  being  degraded  ;  it  was  this  "  Man  is  nobler 
than  the  brute  and  born  to  a  higher  destiny."  This  truth  was 
deeply  engraved  in  their  minds ;  and  in  defence  of  it  they 
battled,  and  fought,  and  bled,  all  down  the  painful  course  of  their 
history. 

Had  the  intellect  of  the  nation  been  really  debased,  would 
not  their  religious  principles  have  been  the  first  things  to  be 
thrown  overboard  ?  Would  they  not  have  adopted  unhesitatingly 
all  the  tenets  successively  proposed  to  them  by  the  various  "  re- 
formers "  of  England  I  What  is  truth,  when  there  is  no  mind  to 
receive  it  ?  It  requires  a  strong  mind  indeed  to  say,  "  I  will 
suffer  every  thing,  death  itself,  rather  than  repudiate  what  I 
know  comes  from  God."  It  is  useless  to  dwell  longer  on  these 
considerations.  The  man  who  sees  not  in  such  an  heroic  deter- 
mination proof  of  a  strong  and  noble  mind  may  be  possessed  of 
a  great,  but  to  common-sense  people  it  will  look  like  a  very 
limited  intelligence.  ' 

Mr.  Godkin  cannot  have  duly  weighed  his  expressions  when 
he  spoke  of  the  debasement  of  morals  among  the  Irish.    It  is  no 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


323 


hyperbole  to  speak  of  the  nation  as  a  martyr ;  a  martyr  in  any 
sense  of  the  word :  to  the  Christian,  a  Christian  martyr.  And 
yet  it  is  by  that  fact  guilty  of  immorality,  or,  as  he  puts  it,  debased 
in  morals !  The  point  is  not  worth  arguing.  But  in  contrasting 
the  two  nations,  the  nation  debased  and  the  nation  that  wrought 
its  debasement,  we  are  irresistibly  reminded  of  the  words  used 
by  Our  Lord  in  reference  to  John  the  Baptist,  then  in  prison 
and  liable  at  any  moment  to  be  condemned  to  death  :  "  What 
went  ye  out  in  the  desert  to  see  ?  A  man  clothed  in  soft  gar- 
ments ?  Lo  !  they  that  are  clothed  in  soft  garments  dwell  in  the 
houses  of  kings." 

If  we  would  find  a  people  really  debased  in  morals,  we  must 
go  to  those  whose  material  prosperity  breeds  corruption  and 
gives  to  all  the  means  of  satisfying  their  evil  passions.  The 
orgies  of  the  Babylonians  under  their  last  king,  of  the  effeminate 
Persians  later  on,  of  the  Roman  patricians  during  the  empire, 
need  no  more  than  mention.  The  cause  of  the  immorality 
prevailing  at  these  several  epochs  is  well  known,  and  has  been 
told  very  plainly  by  conscientious  historians,  some  of  them  pagans 
themselves.  But,  that  a  people  ground  down  so  long  under  a 
yoke  of  iron,  gasping  for  very  breath,  yet  refusing  to  surrender 
its  belief  and  the  worship  of  its  God  as  its  countless  saints  wor- 
shipped him,  to  follow  the  wild  vagaries  of  sectarians  and  fanatics, 
should  at  the  same  time  be  accused  of  corruption  and  debasement 
of  its  morals,  is  too  much  for  an  historian  to  assert  or  a  reader 
to  believe. 

But,  beyond  all  argument,  it  has  been  generally  conceded,  in 
spite  of  prejudices,  that  the  Irish,  of  all  peoples,  had  been 
preeminently  moral  and  Christian.  No  one  has  dared  accuse 
them  of  open  vice,  however  they  may  have  been  accused  of 
folly.  Intemperance  is  the  great  foible  flung  at  them  by  many 
who,  careful  to  conceal  their  own  failings,  are  ever  ready  to 
"  cast  the  first  stone "  at  them.  It  would  be  well  for  them  to 
ponder  over  the  rebuke  of  the  Saviour  to  the  accusers  of  the 
woman  taken  in  adultery  ;  when  perhaps  they  may  think  twice 
before  repeating  the  time-worn  accusation. 

Coming  to  the  "people  sinking  in  degeneracy  from  age  to 
age ; "  if  by  this  is  meant  that,  for  a  whole  century,  many  of  them 
have  suffered  the  direst  want  and  died  of  hunger,  that  scanty 
food  has  impressed  on  many  the  deep  traces  of  physical  suffering 
and  bodily  exhaustion,  no  one  will  dispute  the  fact,  while  the 
blame  of  it  is  thrown  where  it  deserves  to  be  thrown.  But  it 
will  be  a  source  of  astonishment  to  find  that,  despite  of  this,  the 
race  has  not  degenerated  even  physically ;  that  it  is  still,  perhaps, 
the  strongest  race  in  existence,  and  that  no  other  European,  no 
Englishman  or  Teuton,  can  endure  the  labor  of  any  ordinary 
Irishman.    In  the  vast  territory  of  the  United  States,  the  publia 


324 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


works,  canals,  roads,  railways,  huge  fabrics,  immense  manufac- 
tories, bear  witness  to  the  truth  of  this  statement,  and  the  only 
explanation  that  can  be  satisfactorily  given  for  this  strange  fact 
is,  that  their  morals  are  pure  and  they  do  not  transmit  to  their 
children  the  seeds  of  many  diseases  now  universal  in  a  univer- 
sally corrupt  society. 

There  remains  the  final  accusation  of  the  "  very  features — 
vacant,  timid,  cunning,  and  unreflective — betraying  the  crouching 
slave  within." 

Granting  the  truth  of  this — which  we  by  no  means  do,  every 
school-geography  written  by  whatever  hand  attesting  the  con- 
trary to-day — where  would  have  been  the  wonder  that  they, 
subjected  so  long  to  an  unbending  harshness  and  never-slumber- 
ing tyranny,  accustomed  to  those  continual  "  domiciliary  visits  " 
so  common  in  Ireland  during  the  whole  of  last  century,  dragged 
so  often  before  the  courts  of u  justice,"  to  be  there  insulted, 
falsely  accused,  harshly  tried  and  convicted  without  proof — were 
obliged  to  be  continually  on  their  guard,  to  observe  a  deep 
reserve,  the  very  opposite  to  the  promptings  of  their  genial 
nature,  to  return  ambiguous  answers,  full,  by  the  way,  of  natural 
wit  and  marvellous  acuteness  2  It  was  the  only  course  left  them 
in  their  forlorn  situation.  They  pitted  their  native  wit  against 
a  wonderfully  devised  legislation,  and  often  came  off  the  victors. 
Suppose  it  were  true,  was  it  not  natural  that,  under  such  a 
system  of  unrelaxing  oppression  and  hatred  toward  them,  their 
faces  should  be  "  vacant,  timid,  cunning,  and  unreflective,  be- 
traying the  crouching  slave  within  ? " 

Could  they  give  back  a  proud  answer,  when  a  proud  look  was 
an  accusation  of  rebellion  ?  Are  prudence,  cunning,  and  just 
reserve,  vacancy  and  want  of  reflection  ?  The  man  who  penned 
those  words  should  remember  the  choice  of  alternatives  ever 
present  to  the  mind  of  an  Irishman,  however  unjustly  suspected 
or  accused — the  probability  of  imprisonment  or  hanging,  of 
being  sent  to  the  workhouse  or  transported  to  the  "  American 
plantations." 

The  Irishman  must  have  changed  very  materially  and  very 
rapidly  since  Mr.  Godkin  wrote.  The  features  he  would  stamp 
upon  him  might  be  better  applied  to  the  Sussex  yokel  or  the 
English  country  boor  of  whatever  county.  The  generality  of 
travellers  strangely  disagree  with  Mr.  Godkin.  They  find  the 
Irishman  the  type  of  vivacity,  good  humor,  and  wit ;  and  they 
are  right.  For,  under  the  weight  of  such  a  load  of  misery, 
under  the  ban  of  so  terrible  a  fate,  the  moral  disposition  of  the 
Irishman  never  changed ;  his  manhood  remained  intact.  To- 
day, the  world  attests  to  the  same  exuberance  of  spirits,  the  same 
tenacity  of  purpose,  which  were  ever  his.  This  indeed  is  won- 
derful, that  this  people  should  have  been  thus  preserved  amid  so 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


325 


many  causes  for  change  and  deterioration.  "Who  shall  explain 
this  mystery  ?  What  had  they,  all  through  that  age  of  woe,  to 
give  them  strength  to  support  their  terrible  trials,  to  preserve  to 
them  that  tenacity  which  prevented  their  breaking  down  alto- 
gether ?  Something  there  was  indeed  not  left  to  them,  since  it 
was  forbidden  under  the  severest  penalties  ;  something,  never- 
theless, to  which  they  clung,  in  spite  of  all  prohibitions  to  the 
contrary. 

It  was  the  Mass-Rocic,  peculiar  to  the  eighteenth  century, 
now  known  only  by  tradition,  but  at  that  time  common  through- 
out the  island.  The  principal  of  those  holy  places  became  so 
celebrated  at  the  time  that,  on  every  barony  map  of  Ireland, 
numbers  of  them  are  to  be  found  marked  under  the  appropriate 
title  of  "  Corrig-an-Affrion  " — the  mass-rock. 

Whenever,  in  some  lonely  spot  on  the  mountain,  among  the 
crags  at  its  top,  or  in  some  secret  recess  of  an  unfrequented  glen, 
was  found  a  ledge  of  rock  which  might  serve  the  purpose  of  an 
altar,  cut  out  as  it  were  by  Nature,  immediately  the  place  became 
known  to  the  surrounding  neighborhood,  but  was  kept  a  pro- 
found secret  from  all  enemies  and  persecutors.  There  on  the 
morning  appointed,  often  before  day,  a  multitude  was  to  be  seen 
kneeling,  and  a  priest  standing  under  the  canopy  of  heaven, 
amid  the  profound  silence  of  the  holy  mysteries.  Though  the 
surface  of  the  whole  island  was  dotted  with  numerous  churches, 
built  in  days  gone  by  by  Catholics,  but  now  profaned,  in  ruins, 
or  devoted  to  the  worship  of  heresy,  not  one  of  them  was  al- 
lowed to  serve  for  a  place  where  a  fraction  even  of  the  bulk  of 
the  population  might  adore  their  God  according  to  the  rites  ap- 
proved of  by  their  conscience.  Shut  off  from  these  temples  so 
long  hallowed  by  sweet  remembrance  as  the  spots  once  occupied 
by  the  saints  and  consecrated  to  the  true  worship  of  their  God, 
this  faithful  nation  was  consecrating  the  while  by  its  prayers,  by 
its  blood,  and  by  its  tears,  other  places  which  in  future  times 
should  be  remembered  as  the  only  spots  left  to  them  for  more 
than  a  century  wherein  to  celebrate  the  divine  rites. 

This  was  the  only  badge  of  nationality  they  had  preserved, 
but  it  was  the  most  sacred,  the  surest,  and  the  sweetest.  Who 
shall  tell  of  the  many  prayers  that  went  up  thence  from  devoted 
minds  and  hearts,  to  be  received  by  angels  and  carried  before 
the  throne  of  God  %  Who  shall  say  that  those  prayers  were  not 
hearkened  to  when  to-day  we  see  the  posterity  of  those  holy 
worshippers  receiving  or  on  the  point  of  receiving  the  full  meas- 
ure of  their  desires  ? 

There,  indeed,  it  was  that  the  nation  received  its  new  birth  ; 
in  sorrow  and  suffering,  as  its  Saviour  was  born,  but  for  that 
very  reason  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  God  and  man.  Their  enemiea 
had  sworn  complete  separation  from  them,  eternal  animosity 


326 


A  CENTURY  OF  GLOOM. 


against  them ;  the  new  nation  accepted  the  challenge,  and  that 
complete  separation  decreed  by  their  enemies  was  the  real  means 
of  their  salvation  and  of  making  them  a  People. 

As  has  already  been  observed,  the  various  attempts  to  make 
Protestants  of  them,  attempts  sometimes  cunning  and  crafty,  at 
others  open  and  cruel,  always  persevered  in,  never  lost  sight  of, 
began  to  imbue  the  people  with  a  new  feeling  of  nationality, 
^ever  experienced  before,  and  constantly  increasing  in  intensity. 

This  was  witnessed  under  the  Tudors.  Their  infatuation  for 
the  Stuart  dynasty  served  the  same  end,  and  it  may  be  said  that, 
from  all  the  evils  which  that  attachment  brought  upon  them, 
burst  forth  that  great  recompense  of  national  sentiment  which 
almost  compensated  them  for  the  terrible  calamities  which  fol- 
lowed in  its  train.  It  was  under  Charles  I.  that  the  Confedera- 
tion of  Kilkenny  first  gave  them  a  real  constitution,  better 
adapted  for  the  nation  than  the  old  regime  of  their  Ard-Righs. 

But  it  was  chiefly  under  the  English  Commonwealth,  when 
they  were  so  mercilessly  crushed  down  by  Cromwell  and  his 
brutal  soldiery,  when  there  seemed  no  earthly  hope  left  them, 
that  the  solid  union  of  the  old  native  with  the  Anglo-Irish  fami- 
lies, which  had  already  been  attempted — and  almost  successfully 
by  the  Confederation  of  Kilkenny — yet  never  consummated, 
was  finally  brought  about  once  for  all ;  their  common  misery 
uniting  them  in  the  bonds  of  brotherly  affection,  blotting  out 
forever  their  long-standing  divisions  and  antipathies  which  had 
never  been  quite  laid  aside. 

It  was  thus  that  the  nation  was  formed  and  prepared  by  mar- 
tyrdom for  the  glorious  resurrection,  the  greater  future  kept  in 
store  for  it  by  Providence ;  the  people  all  the  while  remaining 
undebased  under  their  crushing  evils. 

Lastly,  the  intensity  of  the  suffering  produced  by  the  penal 
laws,  during  the  eighteenth  century,  linked  the  nation  in  closer 
bonds  of  union  still,  and  this  time  gave  them  a  unanimity 
which  became  invincible.  Their  final  motto  was  then  adopted, 
and  will  stand  forever  unchanged.  In  the  clan  period  it  was 
"  Our  sept  and  our  chieftain  ; "  under  the  Tudors,  "  Our  religion 
and  our  native  lords;"  under  the  Stuarts  it  suddenly  became 
"  God  and  the  King ; " — it  changed  once  more,  never  to 
change  again  :  it  was  embraced  in  one  word,  the  name  of  Him 
who  had  never  deserted  them,  who  alone  stood  firm  on  their 
side—"  Our  God  !  " 


CHAPTEE  XIII. 


EESTJEEECTION.  DELUSIVE  HOPES. 

By  delusive  hopes  are  here  meant  some  of  the  various 
schemes  in  which  Irishmen  have  indulged  and  still  indulge  with 
the  view  of  bettering  their  country.  This  chapter  will  aim  at 
showing  that,  for  the  resurrection  of  Ireland,  the  reconstruction 
of  her  past  is  impossible ;  parliamentary  independence  or 
"home  rule,"  insufficient ;  physical  force  and  violent  revolu- 
tion, in  conjunction  with  European  radicals  particularly,  is  as 
unholy  as  it  is  impracticable. 

The  resurrection  of  the  Irish  nation  began  with  the  end  of 
last  century.  As,  to  use  their  own  beautiful  expression,  "  'Tis 
always  the  darkest  the  hour  before  day,"  so  the  gloom  had 
never  settled  down  so  darkly  over  the  land,  when  light  began  to 
dawn,  and  the  first  symptoms  of  returning  life  to  flicker  over  the 
face  of  the,  to  all  seeming,  dead  nation.  Its  coming  has  been 
best  described  in  the  "  History  of  the  Catholic  Association  "  bv 
"Wyse.  On  reading  his  account,  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck: 
with  the  very  small  share  that  men  have  had  in  this  movement; 
it  was  purely  a  natural  process  directed  by  a  merciful  God.  As 
with  all  natural  processes,  it  began  by  an  almost  imperceptible 
movement  among  a  few  disconnected  atoms,  which,  by  seeming 
accident  approaching  and  coming  into  contact,  begin  to  form 
groups,  which  gather  other  groups  toward  them  in  ever-in- 
creasing numbers,  thus  giving  shape  to  an  organism  which 
defines  itself  after  a  time,  to  be  finally  developed  into  a  strong 
and  healthy  being.  This  process  differed  essentially  from  those 
revolutionary  uprisings  which  have  since  occurred  in  other  na- 
tions, to  the  total  change  in  the  constitution  and  form  of  the 
latter,  without  any  corresponding  benefit  arising  from  them. 

Before  entering  upon  the  full  investigation  of  this  uprising, 
it  may  be  well  to  dispel  some  false  notions  too  prevalent,  even 
in  our  days,  among  men  who  are  animated  with  the  very 
best  intentions,  who  wish  well  to  the  Irish  cause,  but  who 
seem  to  fail  in  grasping  the  right  idea  of  the  question.  Re- 
construction, say  they,  is  impossible — at  least  as  far  as  the 


328 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


past  history  of  the  country  goes.  Where  are  her  leaders,  hei 
chieftains,  her  nobility  ?  Feudalism  broke  the  clans,  persecution 
put  an  effectual  stop  to  the  labors  of  genealogists  and  bards. 
Where,  to-day,  are  the  O'Neill,  the  O'Brien,  the  O'Donnell,  and 
the  rest  ?  Until  new  leaders  are  found,  offshoots,  if  possible,  of 
the  old  families,  more  faithful  and  trustworthy  than  those  who 
so  far  have  volunteered  to  guide  their  countrymen,  how  is  it 
possible  to  expect  a  people  such  as  the  Irish  have  always  been,  to 
assume  once  more  a  corporate  existence,  and  enjoy  a  truly 
national  government  ? 

I.  That  the  Irish  nobility  has  disappeared  forever  may  be 
granted.  In  giving  our  reasons  for  believing  in  the  impossibility 
of  connecting  the  present  with  the  past  through  that  class,  and 
thus  restoring  a  truly  national  government,  and  in  strengthening 
this  opinion  by  what  follows,  we  shall  show  at  the  same  time 
that,  in  that  regard,  Ireland  is  on  a  par  with  all  other  national- 
ities, among  whom  the  aristocratic  classes  have  quite  lost  the 
prestige  that  once  belonged  to  them,  and  can  no  longer  be  said  to 
rule  modern  nations. 

The  question  of  nobility  is  certainly  an  important  one  for  the 
Irish — nay,  for  all  peoples.  Up  to  quite  recently,  profound 
thinkers  never  imagined  it  possible  for  a  people  to  enjoy  peace 
and  happiness  save  under  the  guidance  of  those  then  held  to  be 
natural  guides  with  aristocratic  blood  in  their  veins,  who  were 
destined  by  God  himself  to  rule  the  masses.  We  are  far  from 
falling  in  with  the  fashion,  so  common  nowadays,  of  deriding 
those  ideas.  Men  like  Joseph  de  Maistre,  who  was  certainly  an 
upholder  of  the  theory,  and  who  could  not  suppose  a  nation  to 
exist  without  a  superior  class  appointed  by  Providence  to  guide 
those  whose  blood  was  less  pure,  have  a  right  to  be  listened  to 
with  respect,  and  none  of  their  deliberate  opinions  should  be 
treated  with  levity. 

And,  in  truth,  no  nobility  ever  existed  more  worthy  of  the 
title,  as  far  as  the  origin  of  its  power  went,  than  the  Irish.  Its 
last  days  were  spent,  like  those  of  true  heroes,  fighting  for  their 
country  and  their  God.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  they,  the 
truest,  were  the  first  of  the  aristocratic  classes  to  fall.  After 
them,  all  the  aristocracies  of  Europe,  with  the  exception  perhaps 
of  the  English,  which  still  exists  at  least  in  name,  gradually  saw 
their  power  wrested  from  them,  so  that,  to-day,  it  may  be  said 
with  truth  that  the  "  noble  "  blood  has  lost  its  prerogative  of 
rule. 

Various  are  the  theories  on  these  superior  classes  ;  a  few 
words  on  some  of  them  mav  be  as  appropriate  as  interesting. 

Of  all  those  advanced,  "Pico's  are  the  least  defensible,  though 
they  seem  to  rest  on  a  deep  knowledge  of  antiquity.  No  Chris- 
tian can  accept  his  view  of  a  universal  savage  state  of  society  after 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


329 


the  Flood  ;  and  his  explanation  of  the  origin  of  aristocratic  race3, 
and  of  the  plebeians,  their  slaves,  is  purely  the  work  of  imagina- 
tion, however  well  read  in  classic  lore  may  have  been  the  author 
of  "  Scienza  NuovaP  To  suppose  with  him  that  the  primeval 
"nobles"  reached  the  first  stage  of  civilization  by  inventing 
language,  agriculture,  and  religion,  and  by  imposing  the  yoke 
of  servitude  on  the  "  brutes "  who  were  not  yet  possessed  of 
the  first  characteristics  of  humanity,  is  revolting  to  reason,  and 
contradictory  to  all  sound  philosophy  and  knowledge  of  history. 
His  aristocracy  is  a  brutal  institution  which  he  does  well  to 
doom  to  extinction  as  soon  as  the  plebs  is  sufficiently  instructed 
and  powerful  enough  to  seize  upon  the  reins  of  government, 
before  it,  in  its  turn,  is  brought  under  by  the  progressive  march 
of  monarchy,  with  which  his  system  culminates. 

The  feudal  ideas  concerning  "  noble  "  blood  rested  on  an 
entirely  different  basis.  The  feudal  monarch  is  but  the  first  of 
the  nobles,  and  the  possession  of  land  is  the  true  prerogative  and 
charter  of  nobility.  The  inferior  classes  being  excluded  from 
that  privilege,  are  also  excluded  from  all  political  rights,  and 
are  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  conquered  races  which  were 
first  reduced  to  slavery.  Christianity  was  the  only  power  which 
effected  a  change,  and  a  deep  one,  in  the  relations  of  these 
two  classes  to  each  other;  the  rigorous  application  of  the  sys- 
tem by  the  Northmen  being  entirely  opposed  to  the  elementary 
teachings  of  our  holy  religion. 

From  the  change  thus  brought  about  resulted  the  Christian 
idea  of  aristocratic  and  monarchical  government  which  had  the 
support  of  some  gifted  writers  of  the  last  and  present  centuries. 
It  was  in  fact  a  return  to  the  old  system  realized  by  Charlemagne 
in  the  great  empire  of  which  he  was  the  founder — a  system 
whose  glorious  march  was  interrupted  by  the  invasion  of  feudal- 
ism in  its  severest  form,  which,  according  to  what  was  before 
said,  came  down  from  Scandinavia  in  the  time  of  Charlemagne's 
immediate  successors.  Under  the  regime  of  the  noble  emperor, 
the  Church,  the  Aristocracy,  and  the  People,  formed  three 
Estates,  each  with  its  due  share  in  the  government.  This  mode 
of  administering  public  affairs  became  general  in  Europe,  and 
stood  for  nearly  a  thousand  years. 

But  is  it  the  particular  form  of  government  necessary  for 
the  happiness  of  a  nation,  as  it  was  held  to  be  by  some  powerful 
minds  %  If  it  is,  then  are  we  born,  indeed,  in  unhappy  times  ; 
for  the  corner-stone  of  the  edifice,  the  aristocratic  idea,  has 
crumbled  away,  and  is  apparently  gone  forever. 

Any  one,  looking  at  Europe  as  it  stands  to-day,  must  feel 
constrained  to  admit  that  its  history  for  the  last  hundred  years 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  one  phrase  :  admission  of  the  middle 
classes  of  society  to  the  chief  seat  of  government.    Russia  now 


330 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


makes  the  solitary  exception  to  this  rule  ;  for  in  England,  which 
6eems  the  most  feudal  of  all  nations,  the  middle  classes  have 
attained  to  a  high  position,  and,  through  their  special  represent- 
atives, have  often  taken  the  chief  lead  in  public  affairs,  ever 
since  the  Revolution  of  1688,  a  lead  which  is  now  uncontested. 
And  as  individuals  of  the  middle  class  are  often  admitted  into  the 
ranks  of  the  aristocracy,  it  would  indeed  be  a  hard  thing  to  find 
purely  "  noble  "  blood  in  the  vast  majority  of  aristocratic  families 
now  existing  in  Great  Britain. 

The  history  of  the  gradual  decline  of  what  is  called  the  no- 
bility in  the  various  states  of  Europe  would  require  volumes. 
In  many  instances  it  would  certainly  be  found  to  have  been 
richly  merited,  in  France  particularly,  perhaps,  where  the  corrup- 
tion of  that  class  was  one  of  the  chief  causes  which  led  to  the 
first  French  Revolution. 

But  in  Ireland  the  original  idea  of  nobility  was  different 
from  that  entertained  elsewhere  ;  the  action  of  the  institution  on 
the  people  at  large  was  peculiar  in  its  character ;  and  if,  in  early 
times,  those  rude  chieftains  were  often  guilty  of  acts  of  violence 
and  outrage  against  religion  and  moralitv,  they  atoned  for  this 
by  that  last  long  struggle  of  theirs,  so  nobly  waged  in  defence 
of  both.  But  the  destruction  of  the  order  was  final  and  com- 
plete, and  seems  to  have  left  no  hope  of  resurrection. 

In  our  first  chapter,  when  treating  of  the  clan  system,  the 
origin  of  chieftainship  among  the  Celts  was  referred  back  to  the 
family :  all  the  chieftains,  or  nobles,  were  each  the  head  of  a 
sept  or  tribe,  which  is  the  nearest  approach  to  a  family;  all  the 
clansmen  were  related  by  blood  to  the  chieftain.  The  order  of 
nobility  among  the  Celts  was  therefore  natural  and  not  artificial ; 
being  neither  the  result  of  some  conventional  understanding  nor 
of  brute  force.  Xature  was  with  them  the  parent  of  nobility 
and  chieftainship ;  and  the  ennobling,  or  raising  a  person  by 
mere  human  power  to  the  dignity  of  noble,  was  unknown  to 
them  :  a  state  of  things  peculiar  to  the  race. 

In  Yico's  system,  aristocracy  sprang  from  physical  force  or 
skill ;  consequently,  nobility  was  founded  on  no  natural  right, 
although  the  author  does  his  best  to  prove  the  contrary,  chiefly 
by  ascribing  to  the  aristocratic  class  the  discovery  or  invention 
of  right  (jus)  which  thus  becomes  a  mere  derivative  of  force. 

In  feudalism,  pure  and  unmixed,  after  it  had  penetrated 
farther  south,  under  the  lead  of  the  Scandinavians,  nobility  was 
derived  from  conquest  and  armed  force.  It  is  true  that,  by  this 
system,  the  viking,  monarch,  or  sovereign  lord,  was  the  one 
who  distributed  the  territory,  won  from  conquered  nations, 
among  his  faithful  followers,  and  thus  land  and  its  consequence, 
nobility,  were  apparently  the  award  of  merit ;  but  the  merit  in 
question  being  equivalent  to  success  in  battle,  it  again  resolved 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


331 


itself  into  armed  force.  In  fact,  the  power  of  feudalism  proper 
rested  in  the  army  ;  the  chief  nobles  were  duces  or  comites 
(dukes  or  counts),  the  inferior  nobles  were  equites  (knights)  and 
milites  (men-at-arms).  All  power  and  title  began  and  ended 
with  force  of  arms,  which  was  the  only  foundation  of  right :  jus 
captionis  et  possessionis — the  right  of  taking  and  of  keeping. 

Eventually  feudal  ideas  underwent  considerable  change 
among  the  aristocracy  of  Christendom,  by  the  gradual  spread 
of  .Christian  manners  ;  and  the  first  establishment  of  nobility  by 
Charlemagne,  which  was  anterior  to  pure  feudalism,  afterward 
revived,  and  lasted  a  thousand  years.  Then  it  was  conferred  by 
the  monarch  on  merit  of  any  kind,  and  it  was  understood  that 
those  whom  superior  authority  had  raised  to  the  dignity  had 
won  their  title  by  their  deeds,  which  were  sufficient  to  prove 
their  noble  blood,  and  that  they  were  empowered  to  transmit 
the  title  to  their  posterity.  The  idea  was  a  grand  one,  and  gave 
proof  of  its  vast  political  and  social  usefulness  in  the  immense 
benefits  which  it  brought  upon  Europe  during  so  many  ages. 
Unfortunately,  the  inroad  of  the  Scandinavians,  following  close- 
ly on  the  death  of  its  great  founder,  introduced  feudalism  as  bet- 
ter known  to  us,  interfered  with  the  institution  which  Charle- 
magne had  established  in  such  admirable  equipoise,  and  added  to 
it  many  barbarous  adjuncts,  which  for  a  long  time  entered  into 
the  idea  of  nobility  itself.  Thus  the  titles  of  feudal  lords  were 
retained — duces,  comites,  equites,  milites — with  all  the  parapher- 
nalia of  brute  force  which  the  harsh  mind  of  northern  despotism 
had  made  divine.  Thus  was  the  holding  of  landed  property  al- 
lowed to  the  nobles  alone  ;  the  great  mass  of  the  population  be- 
ing composed  of  men — ascripti  glebes — who  were  incapable  from 
their  position  of  rising  in  the  social  scale  ;  so  that  all  were  duly 
impressed  with  the  idea  that  the  mass  of  the  people  had  been 
conquered  and  reduced,  if  not  to  slavery,  to  what  greatly  resem- 
bled it — serfdom.  From  this  order  of  things  arose  that  fruitful 
source  of  all  modern  revolutions,  the  division  of  Europe  into  two 
great  classes  antagonistic  to  each  other  and  separated  by  an  al- 
most impassable  gulf — the  lords  and  the  "  villeins." 

To  be  sure,  the  supreme  lord  had  the  power  to  raise  even  a 
villein  to  the  rank  of  noble,  after  he  had  proved  his  superior  ele- 
vation of  mind  by  heroic  achievements  ;  but  what  superhuman 
exertions  did  not  those  achievements  call  for  ;  what  a  concourse 
of  fortuitous  circumstances  rarely  occurring,  so  as  to  render  al- 
most illusory  the  hope  of  rising  held  out  by  the  feudal  theory  ! 
The  Church  alone  opened  her  highest  grades  to  all  indiscrimi- 
nately ;  and,  in  her,  true  merit  was  really  an  assurance  of  ad- 
vance. 

Further  details  are  not  needed.  The  difference  between 
the  idea  of  the  nobility  entertained  in  Celtic  countries,  and 


332 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


that  held  by  the  rest  of  Europe,  is  already  in  favor  of  the 
former. 

For  this  reason  the  action  of  the  Irish  aristocracy  on  the  peo- 
ple at  large  was  happily  altogether  free  from  those  causes  of 
irritation  so  common  in  feudal  countries.  A  close  intimacy  and 
personal  devotion  naturally  existed  between  the  chieftain  of  a 
clan  and  his  men — an  intimacy  manifested  by  the  free  manners 
of  the  humblest  among  them,  and  that  ease  of  social  intercourse 
between  all  classes  of  people,  which  was  a  matter  of  so  much 
surprise  to  the  Norman  barons  at  their  primitive  invasion. 

At  first  sight,  the  Celtic  system  appears,  in  one  respect  at 
least,  inferior  to  that  which  prevailed  throughout  the  rest  of 
Europe  :  the  simple  clansmen  could  never  indulge  in  the  hope 
of  attaining  to  the  chieftainship,  being  naturally  excluded  from 
that  high  office.  Only  the  actual  members  of  the  chieftain's  own 
family  could  hope  to  succeed  him  after  his  death,  by  election, 
and  take  the  lead  of  the  sept ;  thus  nobility  was  entirely  exclu- 
sive, and  regulated  by  the  very  laws  of  Nature.  The  office  was 
really  not  transferable,  and  no  degree  of  exertion,  of  whatever 
nature,  could  win  it  for  any  person  born  out  of  the  one  family. 
But  the  difference  was  scarcely  one  in  fact ;  and  we  know  how 
illusory  often  was  that  ambition  which  the  system  of  merit  in- 
spired in  the  man  born  of  an  inferior  class  in  other  races  than 
the  Celtic.  The  broad  assertion,  that  no  man  could  rise  from 
the  condition  in  which  he  happened  to  be  born,  remains  true  for 
nearlv  all  cases. 

mi 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  were  motives  of  ambition  be- 
sides that  of  becoming  chieftain,  or  entering  on  the  road  thereto, 
by  being:  admitted  into  the  ranks  of  the  nobility,  which  lay  open 
to  the  Celt ;  and  if  the  desire  of  a  mere  clansman  to  become  a 
chieftain  lay  within  the  bounds  of  possibility,  the  social  state  of 
Celtic  countries  would  have  been  broken  up  and  become  intoler- 
able, and  society  would  have  been  dissolved  into  its  primitive 
elements.    Two  considerations  of  importance. 

The  whole  of  Irish  history  teaches  one  lesson,  or,  rather, 
impresses  one  fact :  that  every  member  of  a  clan  took  as  much 
pride  in  the  sept  to  which  he  belonged,  and  labored  as  zealouslv 
ior  its  head,  as  he  could  have  done  had  the  advantage  turned  all 
to  himself.  The  peculiar  features  engendered  by  the  system 
were  such  that  each  man  identified  himself  with  the  whole  tribe, 
and  particularly  with  its  leader ;  and  this  is  easily  understood, 
as  we  see  the  same  sort  of  feeling  existing  to-day  among  families. 
It  is  in  the  very  essence  of  natural  ties  to  merge  the  individual 
in  the  community  to  which  he  belongs,  as  in  questions  which 
affect  the  whole  family  to  merge  self  in  the  whole,  to  forget  one's 
own  identity,  to  be  ready  for  any  sacrifice,  particularly  when  the 
sacrifice  is  called  forth  in  defence  of  a  beloved  parent. 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


333 


To  judge  by  the  ancient  annals  of  Ireland  which  are  acces- 
sible, this  was  undoubtedly  the  sentiment  pervading  Celtic  clans, 
and  it  is  easy  to  conceive  how,  under  such  conditions,  ambitious 
thoughts  of  the  chieftainship  or  nobility  could  not  well  enter 
there.  Moreover,  we  repeat,  had  such  ambitious  thoughts  been 
within  the  compass  of  realization,  the  whole  system  would  have 
been  destroyed. 

The  greatest  source  of  quarrels,  feuds,  wars,  and  general 
calamities  among  the  Irish  people,  was  the  insane  aspiration 
among  the  inferior  members  of  a  chieftain's  family  after  supreme 
power.  The  institution  of  Tanist,  or  heir-apparent,  particularly, 
which  was  general  for  all  offices,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest, 
was  a  constant  source  of  trouble  and  contention  to  septs  which, 
without  it,  would  have  remained  united  and  in  harmony.  Mon- 
talembert  has  wTell  said  that  it  seems  as  if  an  incurable  fatality 
accompanied  the  Irish  everywhere,  and  condemned  nearly  ail 
the  highest  among  them  to  have  their  blood  shed  either  by 
others  or  bv  their  own  hand,  and  that  few  indeed  are  those  re- 
nowned  chieftains  and  kings  who  died  quietly  in  their  beds. 
Their  annals  are  filled  throughout  with  tales  of  blood  ;  and,  when 
we  know  of  their  strong  attachment  to  religion,  of  their  tender- 
heartedness for  women,  children,  old  and  feeble  men,  it  is  hard 
to  conceive  how  they  came  to  shed  blood  so  often,  and  show 
themselves  proof  against  the  simplest  claims  of  humanity. 

But  the  difficulty  is  sufficiently  explained  by  their  own  annals 
and  the  state  of  society  under  which  they  lived.  The  Tanistry 
was  the  great  source  of  all  those  evils.  The  position  of  a  chief- 
tain was  so  honorable,  so  influential,  and  powerful,  that  all  natu- 
ral sentiments,  even  those  of  family  affection,  were  often  ex- 
tinguished by  the  insane  ambition  of  attaining  to  it,  in  those 
whom  Nature  had  set  on  the  road  toward  it. 

It  looks  like  a  contradiction,  yet  nothing  is  so  well  established 
as  their  deep  affection  for  their  near  relatives  and  the  fury  engen- 
dered against  their  nearest  of  kin  when  allured  by  the  prospect 
of  the  chieftainship.  What  the  case  might  have  been,  had  all  the 
inferior  clansmen  been  influenced  by  the  same  motive,  one  shud- 
ders to  think.  Happily  the  possibility  of  such  a  position  was 
denied  them,  and  thus  were  they  spared  all  the  crime  and  hor- 
rors which  it  entailed.  Let  us  now  turn  to  the  fall  of  the  Irish 
nobility,  in  order  to  see  how  that  fall  was  final  and  decisive, 
leaving  little  or  no  room  for  the  hope  of  their  resurrection. 

The  great  wars  of  Henry  YIIL  and  Elizabeth  upon  the  isl- 
and often  drove  some  of  the  Irish  chieftains  to  quit  their  coun- 
try for  a  time ;  a  thing  scarcely  ever  known  before,  where  the 
Pale  was  so  contracted  and  the  power  of  the  English  kings  so 
limited.  But  those  first  voyages  of  Irish  lords  to  foreign  coun- 
tries had  generally  no  other  destination  than  England  itself, 


331 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


whither  they  sometimes  repaired  to  justify  themselves  in  the 
presence  of  the  sovereign  against  the  imputations  of  their  ene- 
mies, or  to  pay  court  to  him  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  some 
coveted  object.  Occasionally  their  children  were  brought  up  at 
the  English  court,  either  with  the  view  of  instilling  Protestant- 
ism into  their  artless  minds,  or  to  make  them  friends  of  England, 
so  that  many  of  them  thus  became  king's  or  queen's  men.  In 
this  manner  the  Irish  nobility  first  came  to  look  out  bevond 
their  own  country. 

When,  as  events  went  on,  some  great  family  was  crushed  or 
nearly  so,  as  were  the  Kildares  by  Henry  Tudor  and  the  Geral- 
dines  bv  Elizabeth,  the  outraged  nobility  began  to  think  of  for- 
eign  alliances,  and  cast  their  eyes  abroad  over  Spain,  Belgium,  or 
France,  above  all  toward  Home,  which  was  the  centre  of  their 
religion,  attachment  to  which  was  one  of  their  chief  crimes, 
where  the  Holv  Father  was  ever  ready  to  encourage  and  receive 
them  with  open  arms,  Thus  history  tells  us  of  the  narrow  es- 
cape of  young  Gerald  Desmond. 

He  was  still  a  child  of  twelve  years,  and  the  sole  survivor  of 
the  historic  house  of  Kildare,  when  his  life  was  sought  after  with 
an  eagerness  which  resembled  that  of  Herod,  but  the  devotion 
of  his  clansmen  defeated  all  attempts  at  his  capture.  "Alter- 
nated the  guest  of  his  aunts,  married  to  the  daughter  of  the 
chief  of  Offaly  and  Donegal,  the  sympathy  everywhere  felt  for 
him  led  to  a  confederacy  between  the  northern  and  southern 
chieftains,  which  had  long  been  felt  wanting,  and  never  could  be 
accomplished.  A  loose  league  was  formed,  including  the  O'^N  eills 
of  both  branches,  O'Donnell,  O'Brien,  the  Earl  of  Desmond, 
and  the  chiefs  of  Moylurg  and  Breffni.  The  child,  object  of  so 
much  natural  and  chivalrous  affection,  was  harbored  for  a  time 
in  Munster ;  then  transported,  through  Connaught,  into  Donegal ; 
and  finally,  after  four  years,  in  which  he  engaged  more  the  minds 
of  the  statesmen  than  any  other  individual  under  the  rank  of  roy- 
alty, he  was  safely  landed  in  France." — {A.  2f.  0  'Sullivan.) 

But  the  intercourse  between  the  Irish  nobility  and  foreign 
powers  was  chiefly  increased  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
when  bv  the  great  league  of  the  Desmond  Geral dines  in  the 
south,  which  was  followed  bv  that  of  the  O'js  eills  and  O'Don- 
nells  in  the  north,  they  entered  into  open  treaty  with  the  Popes 
and  the  Kings  of  Spain ;  and,  when  reverses  came,  no  other 
resource  was  left  to  the  outlawed  chieftains  than  flight  to  the 
Continent,  where  they  abode  till  the  storm  blew  over,  sometimes 
for  the  remainder  of  their  lives. 

James  Fitzmaurice  stayed  a  long  time  in  Italy,  where,  on 
hearing  of  the  imprisonment  of  his  cousins,  the  Desmonds,  he 
planned  the  first  great  league  in  defence  of  religion,  no  longer 
for  the  purpose  only  of  righting  family  wrongs,  but  of  waging  a 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


335 


holy  war  which  might  draw  the  cooperation  of  all  the  Catholic 
powers. 

These  few  details  are  here  furnished,  because  they  mark  a 
new  starting-point  in  the  history  of  the  race,  when  the  nobility 
of  the  land  first  went  abroad  to  live  with  a  view  of  finding  allies 
for  the  Irish  cause  ;  while  the  Irish  at  home  looked  anxiously  to 
their  chieftains  abroad  to  return  to  them  with  the  promised  suc- 
cor. 

A  few  words  on  the  policy  exercised  toward  the  Irish  nobili- 
ty by  Henry  VIIL,  Elizabeth,  and  James  I.,  at  the  beginning  of 
his  reign,  will  give  us  a  sufficiently  clear  insight  into  the  means 
adopted  for  the  gradual  attack  upon  them,  which  resulted  first 
in  their  partial  subjugation,  finally  in  their  total  destruction. 
Those  monarchs  thought  that,  to  reduce  Ireland  to  an  English 
colony,  all  they  had  to  do  was  to  destroy  the  chieftains,  and  the 
subjugation  of  the  country  was  complete.  They  were  strength- 
ened in  this  opinion  by  the  outbreak  of  Protestantism,  which 
had  deprived  the  lower  classes  not  only  of  their  material  comfort 
and  religious  consolations,  but  of  all  the  immunities  and  liberties 
which  the  middle  ages  had  left  to  them.  While  the  mass  of  the 
nation  was  not  only  denied  all  political  influence,  but  even  all 
right  to  any  consideration  whatsoever  on  the  part  of  the  state, 
when  the  highest  nobles  were  cowering  at  the  feet  of  royalty, 
utterly  at  the  mercy  of  the  Tudor  despots,  how  could  the  plebs 
of  England  and  Ireland  dare  show  its  front  even  to  testify  to  mere 
existence  ? 

The  English  monarchs  were  aware  that  the  spirit  of  the  Irish 
nobles  was  not  broken  like  that  of  their  English  vassals ;  and 
they  resolved  on  bringing  the  proud  lords  of  the  Pale  and  the 
chieftains  of  the  old  race  to  a  like  submission  with  their  own  no- 
bles. But  of  the  common  clansmen  they  made  no  more  account 
than  of  the  English  rabble,  and  herein  lay  their  great  mistake. 
Subsequent  history  proved  that  the  national  leaders  of  the  Irish 
race  might  be  utterly  annihilated,  and  yet  the  Irish  question 
remain  as  great  a  difficulty  as  ever,  owing  to  the  stubborn, 
though  sometimes  passive  resistance  of  the  peasantry.  But  at 
that  time  such  a  thing  was  not  contemplated. 

All  the  cunning  of  diplomacy,  all  the  artifice  of  the  law, 
finally  all  the  material  resources  of  England,  were  called  in,  one 
after  the  other,  or  together,  to  achieve  that  great  object  of  the 
policy  of  the  Tudors  and  of  the  first  Stuart.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  go  over  what  every  person  conversant  with  the  history  of  the 
time  knows  by  heart ;  it  is  only  proper  to  indicate,  as  briefly 
as  possible,  the  gradual  results  of  that  crafty  and  stern  policy. 

The  Geraldine  war  ended  with  the  total  destruction  of  the 
Catholic  Anglo-Irish  nobles  of  the  south,  whose  place  was  filled 
by  the  younger  sons  of  Protestant  nobles  from  England.  With 


336 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


the  Geraldines,  or  shortly  after  them,  fell  the  O'Sullivans  of 
Beare,  the  McGeohegans,  the  O'Driscolls,  and  O'Connors  of 
Kerry,  whom  Spain  and  Portugal  received. 

Then  the  whole  efforts  of  Elizabeth  were  turned  to  the  de- 
struction of  the  native  chieftains  of  the  north.  She  failed  ;  and 
the  war  resulted  in  a  peace  which  left  their  lands  and  the  open 
practice  of  their  religion  to  the  Ulster  chiefs. 

But  James  I.,  though  he  seemed  willing  to  abide  by  the  artic- 
cles  of  the  treaty,  was  driven  by  hard  pressure  to  employ  deceit, 
fraud,  intimidation,  and  force,  to  bring  the  northern  nobility  into 
his  power,  and  "the  flight  of  the  earls"  was  the  consequence. 

From  this  date  the  "Irish  exiles  "  began  in  good  earnest, 
originally  consisting,  for  the  most  part,  of  families  belonging  to 
the  first  blood  of  the  land,  with  minor  chiefs  and  captains  in 
their  retinue.  Many  letters  written  at  the  time,  which  have 
been  preserved,  as  well  as  reports  of  spies  and  informers,  dis- 
patched to  the  court  of  England  from  Spain,  Portugal,  Belgium, 
France,  and  Italy,  give  us  an  insight  into  the  life  led  by  those 
noblemen  in  foreign  countries.  They  were  sometimes  supported 
by  the  sovereigns  who  received  them ;  but  at  others  neglected 
and  reduced  to  shifts  for  a  living. 

The  "  flight "  itself  and  all  its  details  are  given  by  the  Bev. 
C.  P.  Meehan.  The  entire  number  of  souls  on  board  the  small 
vessel  which  bore  them  away  was,  according  to  Teigue  O'Keenan, 
Ollamh  of  Maguire,  u  ninety-nine,  having  little  sea-store,  and 
being  otherwise  miserably  accommodated."  This  was  indeed  the 
first  emigration  of  the  Irish  nobles  and  gentry,  which  was  to  be 
followed  by  many  another,  to  their  final  extinction. 

Sir  John  Davies  took  an  English  view  of  the  subject  when 
he  wrote,  about  that  time,  to  Lord  Salisbury  :  "  "We  are  glad  to 
see  the  day  wherein  the  countenance  and  majesty  of  the  law  and 
civil  government  hath  banished  Tyrone  out  of  Ireland,  which 
the  best  army  in  Europe,  and  the  expense  of  two  million  pounds 
sterling,  did  not  bring  to  pass.  And  we  hope  his  Majesty's 
government  will  work  a  greater  miracle  in  this  kingdom  than 
ever  St.  Patrick  did  ;  for  St.  Patrick  did  only  banish  the  poison- 
ous worms,  but  suffered  the  men  full  of  poison  to  inhabit  the 
land  still ;  but  his  Majesty's  blessed  genius  will  banish  all  those 
generations  of  vipers  out  of  it,  and  make  it,  ere  it  be  long,  a  right 
fortunate  island." 

Davies's  prophecy  ought  to  have  been  accomplished  long  ago, 
for  it  is  long  since  all  the  Irish  nobility,  "  those  generations  of 
vipers,"  has  been  destroyed ;  yet  the  poor  island  is  still  far  from 
being  "  right  fortunate." 

The  chief  means  employed  at  the  time  to  encompass  the 
destruction  of  the  nobles  was  the  infamous  revelations  of  spies 
and  informers.    The  existence  of  these  agents  has  long  been 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


337 


known  to  all ;  but  the  extent  of  their  workings  was  not  suspected 
even  until  the  state  papers  and  the  correspondence  of  political 
men,  and  holders  of  offices  at  the  time,  came  to  be  examined  by 
writers  desirous  of  investigating  the  whole  truth. 

It  was  then  found  that  every  man  in  the  English  Govern- 
ment, beginning  from  the  highest,  the  king's  ministers,  through 
the  Lords-Lieutenants  and  Chief-Justices  of  Ireland,  down  to  the 
lowest  officials,  one  and  all  kept  in  their  pay  men  of  all  ranks  of 
life,  who,  at  the  bidding  of  their  employers,  were  ready  to  cir- 
cumvent the  victims  of  an  odious  policy,  and  under  the  guise  of 
friendship,  interest,  common  acquaintance,  to  discover,  and  even, 
if  needed,  to  invent  facts  and  circumstances  which  might  be 
turned  against  them,  or  against  any  other  persons  obnoxious  to 
England,  with  the  view  of  destroying  them.  So  that,  to  England 
in  Europe,  and  to  Elizabeth  in  England,  belongs  the  dubious 
honor  of  having  invented  that  great  agent  of  modern  govern- 
ments— the  secret  police. 

But  the  operations  of  those  informers  were  not  confined  to 
England  and  Ireland  alone,  although  those  two  kingdoms  may 
be  said  to  have  literally  swarmed  with  them  ;  all  foreign  countries 
were  made  the  scenes  of  their  infamous  machinations,  wherever 
in  fact  the  Irish  nobles  or  English  Catholics  fled  for  refuge  from 
persecution.  At  the  courts  of  Spain  and  Rome  they  were  to  be 
found ;  in  Brussels  and  Louvain,  in  Paris  and  Rheims,  as  well 
as  in  the  by-lanes  of  London  and  the  lowest  quarters  of  Dublin. 
The  ecclesiastical  establishments  particularly,  which  were  founded 
by  the  Irish  Catholics  for  the  education  of  their  priesthood,,  were 
infested  with  them :  they  found  means  to  penetrate  into  their 
most  secluded  recesses,  and  sometimes  the  vilest  and  most 
shameful  hypocrisy  was  resorted  to  in  order  to  gain  admittance 
into  those  holy  cloisters  devoted  to  science  and  virtue. 

All  the  great  houses  and  hotels  in  foreign  countries,  where 
the  banished  nobility  of  Ireland  passed  the  tedious  hours, 
months,  and  years,  of  their  exile,  were  the  places  easiest  of  access 
to  those  base  tools  of  the  English  Government. 

On  the  reports  furnished  by  these  men  the  British  policy 
was  based,  and  the  nobility  and  gentry  still  left  in  the  island  fell 
into  the  meshes  so  cautiously  spread  around  them.  How  many 
of  their  number  were  cast  into  the  Tower  of  London  or  the 
Castle  of  Dublin,  on  the  mere  word  of  these  pests  of  society ! 
How  many,  suddenly  warned  of  the  treachery  intended,  had  to 
fly  in  haste  lest  they  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  their  enemies ! 
We  know  that  the  first  "  flight  of  the  earls  "  was  brought  about 
by  such  means  as  these,  but  our  readers  would  be  mistaken  in 
imagining  that  that  was  an  exceptional  case,  scarcely  ever  re- 
peated. It  was  in  reality  the  ordinary  way  of  getting  rid  of 
this  hated  race  of  Irishmen. 
22 


338 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


The  great  misfortune  was  that,  even  among  the  Irish  them 
selves,  nay,  among  friars  and  priests  belonging  to  the  race,  the 
English  Government  sometimes,  though  Heaven  be  thanked  ! 
rarely,  found  ready  tools  and  most  useful  informers.  Mean  and 
sordid  souls  are  to  be  found  everywhere  ;  our  Lord  himself  was 
betrayed  by  an  apostle,  while  giving  him  the  kiss  of  peace ;  but 
among  the  Irish  people  this  class  was  confined  to  a  few  needy 
adventurers,  sometimes  to  men  who,  from  some  personal  griev- 
ance, real  or  imaginary,  were  blinded  by  the  spirit  of  revenge  to 
deliver  those  whose  destruction  they  thirsted  for  into  the  hands 
of  their  common  enemies,  to  their  own  eternal  shame  and  per- 
dition. The  common  people  were  too  noble-hearted  ever  to 
join  in  such  infamy,  and  to  those  who  would  have  tempted  them 
with  gold  to  betray  the  men  concealed  by  them,  the  response 
was  ever  ready  :  "  The  King  of  England  is  not  rich  enough  to 
buy  me ! " 

Thus,  piecemeal,  as  it  were,  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  and 
James  L,  and  a  part,  at  least,  of  that  of  Charles  I.,  numbers  of 
the  Irish  nobles  were  imprisoned  or  slain  at  home,  or  compelled 
to  go  into  exile. 

ISTor,  when  James  I.,  going  lower  in  the  social  scale,  began  to 
dispossess  the  ordinary  people,  the  clansmen,  the  tenants  of 
Ulster,  in  order  to  make  room  for  his  Scotch  Presbyterians,  was 
the  war  on  the  nobility  discontinued  on  that  account.  The  most 
prominent  and,  in  its  results,  universal  feature  of  his  reign,  was 
the  breaking  up  of  the  clans  all  over  the  island,  whereby  he 
effected  a  complete  change  in  the  social  state  of  the  country. 
But  the  most  efficacious  means  of  bringing  that  result  about  was 
the  total  destruction  of  the  nobility  and  gentry.  The  crafty 
monarch  knew  that  so  long  as  the  Irish  could  see  and  converse 
with  their  natural  chieftains  and  lords,  so  long  would  it  be  im- 
possible to  extinguish  or  abate,  in  the  slightest  degree,  the  clan- 
spirit.  It  was  only  when  the  key-stone  which  held  their  social 
edifice  together — the  head  of  the  sept — had  disappeared,  that  the 
whole  fabric  would  tumble  into  ruins. 

After  a  long  trial  of  this  policy  of  treachery  and  craft,  came 
Cromwell  to  complete  the  work  with  violence  and  brutal  force. 
There  still  remained  in  the  island  a  great  number  of  noble 
families,  and  the  ollamhs  and  genealogists  kept  clear  the  rolls 
of  the  respective  pedigrees.  There  is  no  doubt,  at  the  time 
of  Cromwell's  war  of  extermination,  even  when  the  English 
Parliament  had  passed  the  Act  of  Settlement,  that  all  the  Irish 
septs  still  knew  where  to  find  their  lawful  natural  chiefs,  who,  if 
no  longer  on  the  island,  were  at  the  head  of  some  regiment  in 
Flanders,  France,  Austria,  or  Spain.  But,  as  time  went  on,  the 
Irish  brigades  naturally  came  to  identify  themselves  more  and 
more  with  the  countries  into  whose  service  they  had  passed,  and 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


339 


where  they  had  taken  up  their  permanent  abode ;  while  in  the 
island  itself,  force  came  to  degrade  what  was  left  of  the  nobles, 
and  to  annihilate  forever  the  national  state  institutions  pre- 
served by  the  genealogists  and  bards. 

One  of  the  features  which  most  forcibly  strikes  the  reader  of 
the  history  of  those  times  is,  what  took  place  all  over  the  island 
when  the  English  Parliament  issued  that  celebrated  proclama- 
tion in  which  it  was  declared  that  "  it  was  not  their  intention  to 
extirpate  this  whole  nation." — {October  11,  1652.) 

By  that  time  the  chief  officers  of  Cromwell's  army  had  al- 
ready taken  possession  of  a  great  number  of  the  castles  and 
estates  of  the  nobility  who  had  not  left  the  country.  The  rest 
had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  adventurers  of  1641,  who  had 
advanced  money  for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  private  army  to 
conquer  lands  for  themselves ;  while  the  body  of  Cromwell's 
troops  looked  on,  awaiting  the  small  pittance  of  a  few  hundred 
acres,  which  was  to  be  their  share  of  the  spoil.  Here  is  the 
strange  and  awe-inspiring  picture  of  the  conquered  island  in  the 
seventeenth  century : 

The  nobles,  who  had  survived  the  fighting  and  defeat,  were 
allowed  to  remain  a  short  time  until  their  transportation  to  Con- 
naught.  But,  driven  away  from  their  mansions,  where  the  new 
"  landlords  " — the  word  then  came  into  use  for  the  first  time — 
occupied  what  had  been  their  apartments,  they  had  to  live  in 
some  ruinous  out-buildings,  and  to  till  with  their  own  hands  a 
few  roods  of  land  for  the  support  of  their  perishing  families.  A 
few  garans  (dray-horses),  and  a  few  cows  and  sheep,  were  the 
only  aid  in  labor  and  production  left  to  them.  They  were  al- 
lowed, by  sufferance,  to  raise  some  small  crops  of  grain  and  roots, 
but  all  their  time  had  to  be  occupied  in  purely  manual  labor. 

Such  is  the  image  which  fixes  itself  indelibly  on  the  memory 
of  any  one  who  reads  attentively  the  common  occurrences  of 
those  days.  It  was  a  picture  presented  in  every  province  of  the 
island ;  in  the  most  distant  mountain-fastnesses  as  well  as  in  the 
still  smiling  plains  of  the  lowlands. 

The  nobles  were,  as  a  class,  utterly  destroyed ;  few  of  them 
fell  to  the  inferior  rank  of  yeomen  ;  while  the  mass  of  the  people 
was  at  once  plunged  to  the  dead  level  of  common  peasants  and 
laborers.  If  some  of  the  former  class  still  retained  a  few  faithful 
servants,  their  help  was  required  for  the  drudgery  abont  the 
farm  or  the  miserable  dwelling.  None  of  them  could  be  spared 
to  keep  up  "  the  glory  of  the  house."  Would  it  not  have  been 
bitter  irony  to  talk  to  this  remnant  of  pedigree  and  their  long 
line  of  ancestors  9  And  would  their  enemies,  who  were  now 
their  masters,  have  countenanced  the  proscribed  offices  of  files 
and  shanachies,  when  laws  against  them  specially  had  been  so 
long  enacted  if  not  enforced  ?    Now  was  the  exact  time  for  the 


340 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


rigid  execution  of  those  laws  so  evidently  designed  for  the  trans- 
formation of  the  freeborn  natives  into  feudal  serfs. 

Hence,  when  the  bitter  day  at  last  came,  which  was  to  de- 
prive them  of  even  the  sight  of  the  hereditary  territory  of  the 
family,  which  was  to  transplant  them  to  Connaught — among 
countrymen,  indeed,  but  none  the  less  strangers  to  them,  whose 
presence  could  not  fail  to  be  unwelcome,  and  bring  disturbance, 
confusion,  and  disorder — how,  in  such  a  case,  could  they  hope  to 
retain  or  revive  their  prestige  as  the  old  lords  of  the  country  ? 
It  is  said  that,  for  this,  many  of  the  Munster  chieftains  preferred 
to  go  into  exile  to  Spain,  or  even  to  the  islands  of  America, 
rather  than  take  up  their  abode  in  Connaught,  where  they  were 
sure  to  find  bitter  enemies  in  the  old  inhabitants  of  that  desolate 
province. 

This  state  of  things  knew  no  change,  except  with  a  very  few 
of  the  Anglo-Irish,  when  Charles  II.  came  to  the  throne,  after 
the  death  of  the  Protector.  He  was  in  truth  merelv  the  executor 
of  the  great  Act  of  Settlement,  and  carried  into  effect  what  had 
been  enacted  by  the  Parliament  which  had  brought  his  father  to 
the  block,  and  driven  himself  into  exile. 

He  only  restored  their  estates  to  a  few  families  of  "  innocent 
papists."  Such  was  the  phrase  applied  to  them  in  derision, 
doubtless.  The  generality  of  the  old  families  continued  to  sink 
deeper  and  deeper  in  degradation,  and  the  forgetfulness  of  all 
they  had  once  been. 

It  took  the  greater  part  of  a  century,  from  1607  to  16 89,  to 
effect  the  almost  total  disappearance  of  the  Irish  nobility.  As 
Colonel  Myles  Byrne,  in  his  u  Irish  at  Home  and  Abroad,"  says : 
"  Few  facts  in  history  are  more  surprising  than  the  rapidity  and 
completeness  of  the  fall  of  the  Irish  families  stricken  down  by 
the  penal  laws.  Reduced  to  beggary  at  once,  and  with  habits 
acquired  in  affluence,  surrounded  only  by  contemporaries  simi- 
larly crushed,  or  by  the  despoilers  revelling  and  rioting  in  pos- 
session of  their  forfeited  lands,  friendless  and  unpitied,  regarded 
as  6  suspects '  from  the  reasons  for  discontent  so  abundantly  fur 
nished  them,  they  seemed  struck  with  stupor,  and  utterly  inca- 
pable of  any  effort  to  rise  out  of  the  abyss  into  which  they  had 
been  precipitated.  Dispirited,  heart-broken,  unmanned,  they 
suffered  the  little  personal  property  left  them  to  melt  away ; 
and,  on  its  exhaustion,  were  compelled  to  resort  to  the  most  hu- 
miliating means  to  prolong  existence,  and  to  accept  for  their 
helpless  offspring  the  humblest  condition  which  promised  them 
a  maintenance.  A  1  trade '  was  the  general  resort  sought  for  the 
son  of  the  chief  of  a  clan,  landholder,  or  gentleman. 

"  This  gave  rise  to  Swift's  observation  to  Pope :  i  If  you 
would  seek  the  gentry  of  Ireland,  you  must  look  for  them  on  the 
coal-quay  or  in  the  liberty.' 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


341 


"  Thus,  in  my  youth,  *  the  Devoy,'  the  hend  of  one  of  the 
most  powerful  and  distinguished  of  our  septs,  was  a  blacksmith, 
1  have  often  seen  a  mechanic,  named  James  Dungan,  who  was 
said  to  be  a  descendant  of  James  Dungan,  Earl  of  Limerick ;  and 
£  the  Chevers 5  (Lord  Mount  Leinster)  was  the  clerk  of  Mrs. 
Byrnes,  who  carried  on  the  business  of  a  rope-maker. 

"  Maddened  and  embittered  by  humiliation  and  suffering,  re- 
nouncing all  hope  of  recovering  their  stolen  lands,  those  victims 
of  i  bills  of  discovery,'  or  of  confiscation,  burned  or  destroyed,  or 
threw  aside,  as  worse  than  useless,  the  records  of  their  former 
possessions,  the  proofs  of  their  former  respectability,  and  seemed, 
in  fact,  desirous  to  efface  all  evidence  of  it.  I  know  one  case  in 
which  the  title-deeds  of  an  estate  were  searched  for  an  important 
occasion,  and  in  wThich  it  appeared  that  they  had  been  given  to 
tailors  to  cut  into  strips  or  measures  for  purposes  of  their  trade. 

"  A  claim  was  set  up  to  a  dormant  peerage,  and  a  relation  of 
mine  having  been  applied  to  for  information  in  support  of  it, 
he  said  :  i  You  are  positively  in  remainder  ;  but  you  are  in  the 
condition  of  the  descendants  of  many  Irish  families,  whose  great 
difficulty  is  to  prove  who  was  their  grandfather.' " 

The  reader  is  naturally  struck,  when  the  sudden  appearance 
of  James  II.  on  the  island  presents  to  his  eyes  another  Irish 
army,  and  a  new  Irish  nation,  fighting  again  for  God  and  the 
king,  but  with  few  of  the  old  names  among  those  who  then  ap- 
peared on  the  scene.  The  leaders  throughout  the  three  years' 
struggle,  which  decided  the  ultimate  fate  of  the  country,  for  the 
most  part  have  names  unknown  to  Ireland,  and  unassoeiated 
with  its  former  history,  so  completely  had  the  aristocracy  of  the 
island  perished  and  disappeared. 

It  may  be  well  imagined,  then,  that,  after  the  passage  of  another 
century  of  woe  such  as  was  described  in  the  last  chapter,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  reconstruct  the  genealogies  of  the  old  families 
who  might  be  entitled  to  lead  the  rising  generation.  Some  few 
names  are  still  advanced  as  entitled  to  the  hereditary  honors  of 
once  noble  families,  and  thus  we  still  hear  of  pretensions  to  title 
of  "  the  O'Brien,"  "  the  O'Donaghue,"  and  a  few  others.  That 
such  pretensions  are  acknowledged  by  the  generality  of  the  na- 
tion, it  would  be  questionable  to  assert. 

To  think,  then,  of  reconstructing  the  Irish  nation  out  of  its 
former  elements,  as  they  once  existed,  would  be  an  idle  dream. 
Those  elements  are  dissolved  and  forever  destroyed,  and  all  that 
the  nation  can  do  with  respect  to  its  past  is  to  preserve  in  pious 
remembrance  the  former  race  of  men  who  once  shed  down  such 
a  glory  over  Irish  annals.  It  was  a  happy  and  patriotic  thought 
of  the  antiquarian  societies  of  the  island  to  investigate  the  old 
national  records ;  to  illustrate,  explain,  and  bring  them  before  the 
public  in  a  language  intelligible  to  the  present  generation.    It  is 


342 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


doubtful  if  in  any  other  country  the  aristocracy  fell  with  a  hero- 
ism and  glory  so  pure  and  unalloyed.  Among  all  modern  nations, 
as  was  said  previously,  the  old  class  of  noblemen  has  either  passed 
out  of  sight,  or  is  fast  disappearing  from  living  history.  Ireland, 
then,  does  not  stand  alone  in  that  respect.  She  was  the  first  to 
lose  her  nobility,  and  she  lost  it  more  utterly  than  any  other  na- 
tion. But  in  the  variety  of  movements,  complications,  revolu- 
tions, which  now  go  to  form  the  daily  current  of  events  in  Eu- 
rope, where  do  we  find  the  nobles  regarded  as  a  power,  as  an  ele- 
ment calculated  to  restore  or  even  to  preserve  ?  The  "  noblemen  " 
are  well  enough  satisfied  nowadays,  if  they  are  not  persecuted, 
proscribed,  or  destroyed  ;  if  they  are  enabled  to  take  their  stand 
amid  the  crowd  of  men  of  inferior  rank  and  share  in  the  affairs 
of  their  country;  content  to  see  their  names  once  so  exclusively 
glorious,  set  on  a  par  with  those  of  plebeians,  to  lead  the  mod- 
ernized peoples  into  the  new  paths  whither  they  are  rapidly  drift- 
ing. Nay,  so  low  have  the  mighty  fallen,  that  even  dethroned 
kings  and  princes  sometimes  ask  to  be  admitted  as  simple  citi- 
zens in  the  countries  which  they  or  their  ancestors  once 
ruled. 

Here  the  thought  will  naturally  occur:  If  the  phenomenon  is 
universal  with  respect  to  the  position  allotted  now  to  men  of 
"  noble  blood" —  since  it  is  evident  that  for  those  nations  which 
feel  no  veneration  for  it  a  future  history  is  designed,  and  that 
future  is  to  be  utterly  independent  of  such  an  idea — then  Ireland 
is  no  worse  off  than  any  other  country  in  that  regard,  nay,  the 
veneration  for  noble  blood  perhaps  exists,  in  its  right  sense,  now 
in  her  bosom  alone,  and,  though  no  longer  available  for  any  pur- 
pose, is  still  an  element  of  conservatism  worthy  of  preservation 
and  far  from  despicable. 

Therefore,  when  we  number  among  false  hopes  the  one  en- 
tertained by  a  few  Irishmen  whose  thoughts  still  cling  fondly  to 
the  past,  and  who  would  fain  reconstruct  it,  it  is  not  with  the  in- 
tention of  treating  those  aspirations  slightingly,  which  we  ought 
to  honor  and  would  share,  were  there  only  the  faintest  possibility 
of  calling  again  to  life  what  we  cannot  but  consider  passed  away 
forever. 

II.  Let  us  move  on  to  the  consideration  of  our  second  delusive 
hope,  one  of  a  much  deeper  import,  which  to-day  of  all  others 
occupies  public  attention — a  separate  Irish  Parliament  and 
home-rule  government. 

The  desire  for  a  separate  Irish  Parliament  is  certainly  a  na- 
tional aspiration,  it  may  even  be  called  a  right ;  for  the  people  of 
the  island  can  justly  complain  of  bein<*  at  the  mercy  of  a  rival 
nation,  of  which  they  are  supposed  to  form  a  part,  and  are  con- 
sequently heavily  taxed  for  the  support  of  it  without  any  ade- 
quate return.    The  day  may  not  be  far  distajit  when  this  wish  of 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


343 


theirs  will  have  to  be  complied  with,  as  were  so  many  other 
rights  once  as  strenuously  denied. 

Nevertheless  it  is  our  opinion,  and  we  say  it  advisedly,  there 
is  no  reason  for  believing  that  this  would  prove  a  universal  pan- 
acea for  Ireland's  woes,  sure  to  bring  health,  happiness,  and 
prosperity  to  the  nation,  uniting  in  itself  all  blessings,  all  future 
success,  all  germs  of  greatness ;  nor  is  there  reason  to  believe 
that  with  it  the  resurrection  of  the  nation  is  assured,  as  without 
it,  it  would  remain  dead. 

To  speak  still  more  clearly — the  representation  of  a  people 
by  its  deputies  being  according  to  modern  ideas  an  element  of 
free  constitution  for  all  nations,  and  Ireland  having  for  so  long  a 
time  enjoyed  a  privilege  very  similar  to  it  under  her  own  nation- 
al monarchs,  our  object  cannot  be  understood  to  depreciate  a 
political  institution  which  seems  to  have  become  a  necessity 
of  the  times,  owing  to  the  eager  aspiration  of  all  minds  and 
hearts  toward  it.  But  we  think  it  a  delusion  to  imagine  that, 
by  its  possession,  national  happiness  is  necessarily  and  fully 
secured. 

Whatever  may  be  the  general  experience  of  parliamentary 
rule,  its  record  for  Ireland  is  a  sad  one.  The  old  Feis  of  the  na- 
tion are  not  here  alluded  to  ;  they  had  very  little  in  common 
with  modern  Parliaments,  being  merely  assemblies  of  the  chief 
heads  of  clans,  to  which  were  added  in  Christian  times  the  prel- 
ates of  the  Church.  Neither  is  the  "  General  Assembly,"  which 
was  intrusted  with  legislative  and  executive  powers  by  the  Con- 
federation of  Kilkenny,  alluded  to  ;  this  could  not  be  reproduced 
to-day  exactly  as  it  then  existed. 

The  Parliament  here  meant  is  such  as  presents  itself  at  once 
to  the  mind  of  a  man  of  the  nineteenth  century,  with  its  mem- 
bers of  both  Houses  elected  by  the  people,  as  in  America,  or  those 
of  the  Upper  House  in  the  nomination  of  the  crown  ;  its  oppos- 
ing parties  often  degenerating  into  mere  factions  ;  its  views  lim- 
ited to  material  progress,  and  its  aims  and  aspirations  altogether 
worldly ;  deeply  imbued  with  the  modern  ideas  of  liberalism, 
yet  knowing  very  little,  if  any  thing,  of  true  liberty ;  often  fol- 
lowing the  lead  of  a  few  talented  members,  whose  real  merits 
are  seldom  an  index  of  conscience  and  sense  of  right. 

Such  a  liberal  institution  as  this,  which,  if  proposed  to-day 
for  Ireland  by  the  English  Government,  would  be  hailed  with 
unbounded  joy  by  all  ranks  of  people  in  that  country,  would 
nevertheless  be  no  sure  harbinger  of  happiness  to  the  nation, 
and,  to  repeat  what  was  said  above,  the  record  of  such  an  insti- 
tution in  Ireland  is  a  sad  one. 

There  is  no  need  of  entering  upon  a  history  of  Irish  Parlia- 
ments. If  an  impartial  and  fair-minded  author  were  to  take  up 
Buch  a  work,  it  might  serve  to  open  the  eyes  of  many,  and  show 


344 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


them  that  it  is  after  all  better  to  rely  on  Divine  Providence  than 

on  such  an  aid  to  national  prosperity. 

Dr.  Madden,  in  his  "  Connection  of  Ireland  with  England," 
conclusively  shows  that  the  right  of  a  free  and  independent  Par- 
liament similar  to  that  of  England  was  granted  to  Ireland  by 
King  John  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  "  Conquest."  Such  a 
Parliament  was  granted  to  the  handful  of  Anglo-Xormans,  who 
were  already  busy  in  building  their  castles  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
ducing the  whole  mass  of  the  clans  to  feudal  slavery  after  having 
deprived  them  of  all  their  free  national  assemblies  and  customs. 
For  nearly  four  hundred  years  the  Irish  Parliaments,  when  not 
completely  subjected  to  English  control,  as  they  finally  were  by 
"  Poyning's  Act,"  were  mere  legislative  machines  devised  for  the 
purpose  of  subduing,  cowing,  and  finally  rooting;  out  every  thing 
Irish  in  the  land.  The  language  of  Sir  John  Davies  was  very 
clear  on  this  subject. 

This  being  such  a  well-known  fact  to-day,  it  seems  strange 
that  a  writer  who  is  so  well  informed,  so  acute  and  discerning, 
and  so  thoroughly  Catholic,  as  Dr.  Madden  undoubtedly  is, 
should  attach  such  great  importance  to  the  institution  of  Parlia- 
ment as  first  granted  by  the  English  monarchs.  They  had  in 
their  eye  only  the  small  English  colony  settled  on  the  island, 
with  all  their  feudal  customs,  and  no  thought  of  granting  liberty 
to  the  mass  of  the  nation.  The  case  of  Molyneux,  which  is  so 
often  quoted  and  praised  by  Irish  writers,  should  be  set  aside 
and  forgotten  by  any  man  animated  by  a  true  love  for  Irish 
prosperity.  It  was  merely  a  revival  of  the  old  parties  of  Eng- 
lish by  blood  and  English  by  birth,  without  a  single  thought  of 
the  rights  of  Irishmen.  It  was  a  case  of  siding  with  one  Eng- 
lish party  against  another,  both  aiming  at  making  Ireland  a  col- 
ony of  England,  the  while  the  unfortunate  country  was  crushed 
between  them,  certain  in  either  case  to  be  the  victim.  The  na- 
tive race  had  nothing  to  say  or  do  in  the  matter,  beyond  assist- 
ing at  the  spectacle  of  their  enemies  wrangling  among  them- 
selves. 

The  same  remarks  will  apply  to  the  pamphlets  of  Dr.  Lucas, 
which  created  so  much  interest  at  the  time,  and  which  Dr.  Mad- 
den quotes  at  such  length.  Lucas,  it  will  be  remembered,  was 
a  violent  anti-Catholic,  and  consequently  anti-Irish  partisan. 

Yet  the  Catholic  Association  made  all  the  use  they  could  of 
the  arguments  of  Molyneux  and  Lucas,  because  these  possessed 
some  vestige  of  the  national  spirit,  inasmuch  as  they  spoke  for 
Ireland,  whose  very  name  was  hated  by  the  opposite  party  ;  and 
at  that  time  the  Association  was  perfectly  right :  but  matters 
have  altered  since  then. 

It  is  certainly  strange  that,  when  serious  attempts  were  made 
by  Ilenry  Till,  to  introduce  Protestantism  into  Ireland,  not 


DELUSIVE  nOPES. 


345 


©nlv  were  An^loTrish  Catholics  summoned  to  Parliament,  but 
even  native  chieftains  also,  some  of  whom  spoke  nothing  but 
Irish,  so  that  their  speeches  required  translating. 

But,  as  was  previously  shown,  this  was  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  a  crafty  device  to  make  genuine  Irishmen  unconsciously 
confirm,  by  what  was  called  their  vote,  former  decrees  in  which 
the  Act  of  Supremacy  had  been  passed  ;  to  make  it  appear  that 
they  had  abjured  their  religion,  and  were  now  good  Protestants ; 
and,  worse  still,  to  set  in  the  statute-book,  as  acknowledged  by  all, 
the  law  of  spiritual  supremacy  vested  in  the  king,  of  abjuration 
of  papal  authority,  of  submission  to  all  decrees  passed  in  England 
with  the  purpose  of  effecting  an  entire  change  in  the  religion  of 
the  nation. 

To  such  vile  uses  was  the  machinery  of  Parliament  reduced. 
Thenceforth  it  became  an  engine  for  the  issuing  of  decrees  of 
persecution.  Catholic  members  occasionally  appeared  in  it  when 
a  lull  in  the  execution  of  the  laws  occurred,  and  they  could  take 
their  seats  without  being  guilty  of  apostasy.  But,  by  making 
close  boroughs  of  his  Protestant  colonies,  J ames  I.  secured,  once 
for  all,  the  majority  of  representatives  on  the  side  of  the  Protes- 
tants, and,  as  a  natural  consequence,  nothing  more  grinding, 
sharp,  piercing,  and  strong,  could  be  imagined  than  this  engine 
of  law  called  the  Irish  Parliament,  as  it  existed  under  the 
Stuarts.  "Nothing"  would  be  incorrect :  there  was  something 
worse ;  it  came  in  with  the  Revolution  of  16S8,  and  its  results 
have  been  witnessed  in  a  previous  chapter. 

Owing  to  the  various  oaths  imposed  upon  members  in  the 
time  of  William  of  Orange,  no  Catholic  could  any  longer  sit  in 
the  Irish  Parliament  without  abjuring  his  faith.  And,  thence- 
forth, the  state  institution  sitting  in  Dublin  became  more  than 
ever  a  persecuting  and  debasing  power,  intent  only  on  making, 
altering,  improving,  and  enforcing  laws  designed  for  the  com- 
plete degradation  of  the  people. 

There  came,  however,  a  period  of  eighteen  years,  called  "  the 
Rise  of  the  Irish  Nation  "  by  Sir  Jonah  Barrington.  It  would 
be  a  pleasure  to  set  this  down  as  a  real  exception  to  the  whole 
previous  or  later  history  of  Ireland  ;  but  such  pleasure  cannot  be 
indulged  in. 

At  the  period  referred  to  France  had  embraced  the  cause  of 
the  North  American  colonies  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  English 
vessels  were  not  the  only  ones  upon  the  seas.  Large  French 
fleets  were  conveying  troops  to  their  new  allies,  and  in  1779  the 
English  Government  sent  warning  to  Ireland  that  American  or 
French  privateers  were  to  be  expected  on  the  Irish  coast,  and  no 
troops  could  be  dispatched  for  the  protection  of  the  island. 
Then  arose  the  great  volunteer  movement.  Every  Irishman 
entitled  to  bear  arms  enrolled  himself  in  some  regiment  raised 


DELUSIVE  nOPES. 


with  the  ostensible  design  of  opposing  a  hostile  landing,  bnt 
really  intended  by  the  patriots  to  force  the  repeal  of  Poyning's 
Act  from  England,  to  obtain  for  the  Parliament  in  Dublin  real 
independence  of  English  dictation. 

The  result  is  well  known.  One  hundred  thousand  Irishmen 
were  soon  under  arms,  who  not  only  took  the  field  as  soldiers, 
and  formed  themselves  into  regiments  of  infantry,  troops  of 
horse,  and  artillery,  but,  strange  to  say,  as  citizens,  sent  dele- 
gates to  conventions,  and  demanded  with  a  loud  voice  that  Eng- 
land should  not  only  grant  free  trade  to  the  sister  isle,  but  like- 
wise invest  the  Irish  Parliament  with  independent  powers. 

This  political  open-air  contest  lasted  two  years,  and,  on  the 
receipt  of  the  news  that  the  British  army  had  capitulated  a.. 
Yorktown,  and  that  the  American  War  had  come  to  a  successful 
termination  on  the  side  of  the  colonists,  the  Ulster  volunteers 
decided  to  hold  a  national  convention  of  delegates  from  every 
city  in  the  province.  On  Friday,  February  15,  1782,  the  meet- 
ing took  place  at  Dungannon,  County  Tyrone,  and  there  the 
delegates  swore  allegiance  to  a  new  and  as  yet  unwritten  charter, 
refusing  to  acknowledge  "  the  claim  of  any  body  of  men,  other 
than  the  King,  Lords,  and  Commons  of  Ireland,  to  make  laws  to 
bind  this  kingdom. " 

The  same  resolution  was  adopted  in  successive  meetings  of 
volunteer  delegates,  municipal  corporations,  and  citizens  gen- 
erally, all  over  the  island. 

The  English  Government  could  not  resist  the  pressure.  After 
some  attempt  at  temporizing  and  delaying  the  concession,  on 
April  15,  1782,  by  the  firmness  of  Grattan  and  his  supporters 
in  the  Dublin  House  of  Commons,  the  great  measure  was  final- 
ly carried  unanimously : 

"  That  the  kingdom  of  Ireland  is  a  distinct  kingdom,  with  a 
Parliament  of  her  own,  the  sole  legislature  thereof ;  that  there  is 
no  body  of  men  competent  to  make  laws  to  bind  the  nation,  but 
the  King,  Lords,  and  Commons  of  Ireland,  nor  any  Parliament 
which  has  any  authority  or  power  of  any  sort  whatever  in  this 
country,  save  only  the  Parliament  of  Ireland ;  that  we  humbly 
conceive  that  in  tnis  right  the  very  essence  of  our  liberty  exists, 
a  right  which  we,  on  the  part  of  all  the  people  of  Ireland,  do  claim 
as  their  birthright,  and  which  we  cannot  yield  but  with  our 
lives."    The  italics  are  our  own. 

"  The  news,"  says  Sir  Jonah  Barrington,  "  soon  spread 
through  the  nation  ;  every  city,  town,  or  village,  in  Ireland 
blazed  with  the  emblems  of  exultation,  and  resounded  with  the 
shouts  of  triumph." 

Within  a  month  the  whole  had  been  accepted  by  the  new 
British  administration.  "  The  visionary  and  impracticable  idea 
had  become  an  accompnshed  fact ;  the  splendid  phantom  had 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


347 


become  a  glorious  reality  ;  the  heptarchy — the  old  Irish  consti- 
tution— had  not  been  restored ;  yet  Ireland  had  won  complete 
legislative  independence." 

Thus  does  the  kind-hearted  author  of  the  "  Rise  and  Fall  of 
the  Irish  Nation  "  commemorate  the  great  event.  It  is  a  pity 
that  it  so  soon  ended,  as  it  deserved  to  end,  in  smoke ;  for  the 
"  unanimous  vote  "  of  the  Dublin  House  of  Commons  was  not 
sincere,  but  intended  to  exclude  from  the  benefit  of  the  newly- 
acquired  liberty  the  great  mass  of  the  people ;  that  is,  all  Catho- 
lics, without  exception. 

Already,  during  the  volunteer  excitement,  Catholics  had 
looked  on  at  the  movement  with  pleasure  and  hope  that,  at 
least,  some  relaxation  of  the  barbarous  code  enacted  against 
them  might  ensue.  Unable  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  move- 
ment, the  laws  not  allowing  them  to  bear  arms  and  enlist,  they 
willingly  brought  such  muskets  as  they  possessed  to  give  to  their 
Protestant  neighbors.  "When  the  final  burst  of  enthusiasm  came 
at  the  news  that  a  free  and  in  dependant  Parliament  was  to  meet 
at  Dublin,  surely  they  were  justified  in  expecting  that,  at  last, 
their  natural  and  civil  rights  might  be  restored  them  in  an  age 
so  enlightened.  They  had  heard  too  of  the  success  of  the 
American  colonies  in  winning  those  rights  for  all  in  their  happy 
country,  beyond  the  Atlantic ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  not  a 
few  of  them  had  heard  how,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  War  of 
Independence,  the  chief  officers  of  the  American  army  had  gone 
in  state  with  their  French  allies  to  the  Catholic  Church  in 
Philadelphia,  there  to  join  in  thanksgiving  to  the  Almighty, 
before  a  Catholic  altar.  Moreover,  they  had  Grattan  and  many 
of  the  volunteers  on  their  side. 

The  all-comprehensive  phrase,  too,  had  been  inserted  in  the 
resolution  so  unanimously  carried,  and  made  law  by  the  British 
Government :  "  We  humbly  conceive  that,  in  this  right,  the  very 
essence  of  our  liberty  consists,  a  right  which  we,  on  the  part  of 
all  the  people  of  Ireland,  do  claim  as  their  birthright,  and  which 
we  cannot  yield  but  with  our  lives." 

Was  it  possible  for  the  originators  and  successful  promoters 
of  this  great  change  in  the  government  of  the  nation  to  interpret 
such  a  phrase  in  a  restricted  sence  ?  Did  not  the  Irish  Catholics, 
the  great  bulk  of  the  people,  form  a  part,  at  least,  of  "  all  in 
Ireland? "  One  would  imagine  so  :  yet  what  followed  soon  after 
showed  the  preposterousness  of  such  an  idea. 

The  new  Parliament  met ;  several  measures  favorable  to  the 
trade  and  manufactures  of  the  island  had  been  carried ;  but  it 
was  soon  found  that  the  electoral  law,  as  it  stood,  failed  to  cor- 
respond with  the  altered  circumstances  of  the  time.  The  legis- 
lative body  was  returned  by  an  antiquated  electoral  system 
which  could  not  be  said  to  represent  the  nation.    Boroughs  and 


348 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


seats  were  openly  and  literally  owned  by  particular  families  or 
private  persons  ;  the  voting  constituency  sometimes  not  number- 
ing more  than  a  dozen.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  less  than  one  hun- 
dred persons  owned  seats  or  boroughs  capable  of  constituting  a 
majority  in  the  Commons  ! 

As  everywhere  else  in  revolutionary  times,  the  question  of 
parliamentary  reform  was  not  debated  in  the  Parliament  only  ; 
e^ery  man  in  the  nation,  each  in  his  own  sphere,  took  part  in 
the  stormy  contest  wThich  began  to  rage  all  over  the  island.  The 
volunteers  were  still  in  their  glory.  Flushed  with  victory,  they 
did  not  cease  from  their  political  agitations.  In  September, 
1783,  they  met  once  more  in  convention  at  Dungannon,  the 
specific  object  of  which,  Dr.  Madden  tells  us,  was  parliamentary 
reform,  and  they  then  determined  "  to  hold  another  grand  na- 
tional convention  of  volunteer  delegates  in  Dublin,  in  the  month 
of  November  following/' 

In  that  extraordinary  assembly,  the  question  of  the  rights  of 
Catholics  was  naturally  brought  up,  and,  to  his  honor  be  it  said, 
the  Protestant  Bishop  of  Derry  proposed  to  extend  the  elective 
franchise  to  them. 

That  some  fanatics  would  oppose  this  motion  was  only  to  be 
expected ;  and  it  would  have  caused  no  surprise  to  find  the 
opposition  confined  to  a  number  of  men  of  inferior  station,  still 
deeply  imbued  with  narrow  Protestant  ideas.  But  when  the 
leaders  of  the  movement  for  national  independence,  Lord  Charle- 
mont  and  Mr.  Flood,  appeared  in  the  ranks  of  the  determined 
opponents  of  the  proposition,  it  was  cause  for  wonder  indeed. 
It  was  chiefly  owing  to  the  exertions  and  influence  of  Lord 
Charlemont  that  the  efforts  of  the  revolution  had  been  finally 
turned  to  the  side  of  freedom  ;  while  Flood  was  a  greater  nation- 
alist than  Grattan  himself,  whose  eloquence  was  so  memorable 
in  the  last  momentous  debates  of  the  Irish  House  of  Commons. 
Flood  carried  his  patriotism  so  far  as  to  suspect  the  British  Gov- 
ernment of  not  being  sincere  in  its  concessions,  when  Grattan 
thought  that  "  nothing  dishonorable  and  disgraceful  ought  to  be 
supposed  in  motives  until  facts  render  them  suspicious." 

Nevertheless,  it  was  Charlemont  and  Flood  who  stood  firm 
for  the  exclusion  of  Catholics  from  the  franchise  demanded  for 
them  by  a  Protestant  bishop ;  and  Flood's  plan  was  the  one 
finally  adopted. 

In  order  to  make  a  stronger  impression  on  the  public  mind, 
a  number  of  delegates,  who  were  also  members  of  Parliament, 
proceeded,  on  November  29th,  directly  from  the  convention  to 
the  House  of  Commons,  some  of  them  dressed  in  their  volunteer 
uniforms,  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  the  plan  of  Mr.  Flood 
to  exclude  the  Catholics  from  the  franchise. 

In  the  midst  of  the  tumult,  the  bill  of  reform  failed,  seventy- 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


349 


seven  voting  for,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  against  it.  There 
was  therefore  no  change  in  the  Parliament,  and  Catholics  re- 
mained in  their  old  position,  in  consequence  of  the  blunders  of 
the  chiefs  of  the  volunteer  movement  for  independence. 

It  is  true  that,  at  the  same  time,  the  whole  volunteer  move- 
ment itself  fell  to  the  ground.  From  that  moment  it  dragged  on 
a  doomed  life.  "  One  would  have  thought,"  says  Dr.  Madden, 
"  there  was  national  vigor  in  it  for  more  than  an  existence  of 
fifteen  years,  and  power  to  effect  more  than  an  ephemeral  in- 
dependence which  lasted  only  eighteen  years." 

But  the  Catholics  had  their  eyes  opened ;  they  saw  that 
the  day  of  resurrection  was  not  yet  come  for  them.  It  was  not 
to  be  brought  about  by  any  Irish  Parliament.  So  far,  therefore, 
we  were  right  in  stating  that  the  parliamentary  record  for  Ire- 
land is  a  sad  one.  It  should  be  said,  however,  that,  from  that 
time,  many  Protestants,  like  the  Bishop  of  Deny,  Grattan,  and 
others,  have  always  been  firm  in  their  demand  for  freedom  to 
all,  and  have  remained  the  stanchest  supporters  of  Catholic 
rights.  What  we  have  hitherto  called  James  I.'s  Ulster  col- 
ony, thus  was  reduced  to  the  Orange  party ;  and,  in  that  sense, 
the  volunteer  movement  was  'a  real  and  permanent  benefit  to 
the  country.  There  is  no  need  to  mention  the  names  of  many 
distinguished  Protestants  of  our  own  times,  whose  whole  lite 
has  been  devoted  by  act,  or  speech,  or  both,  to  the  service 
of  all.    All  honor  to  them ! 

But  it  is  alleged  that  the  Irish  Legislature,  as  framed  by  the 
Constitution  of  1782,  gave  to  the  country  an  uninterrupted  flow 
of  prosperity  for  eighteen  years,  and  hence  the  volunteer  move- 
ment was  of  great  benefit  to  the  race,  at  least  temporarily.  We 
will  present  the  case  in  the  strongest  light  possible  contrary  to 
our  own  opinion,  and  for  this  we  can  do  no  better  than  borrow 
the  arguments  of  Mr.  W.  J.  O'N.  Daunt,  in  his  pamphlet  on 
the  "  Irish  Question  "  (1869) : 

"  Accustomed  as  we  are,"  he  says,  "  since  the  Union — in 
1800 — to  the  national  distress  and  chronic  disturbance  attested 
by  the  Devon  Commissions,  Famine  Reports,  and  other  official 
sources  of  information,  there  seems  something  scarcely  credible 
in  the  account  of  Irish  pre-Union  prosperity — a  prosperity 
which  contrasted  so  strongly  with  the  condition  of  Ireland  under 
a  Parliament  which  is  called  '  Imperial,'  but  which  is  essentially 
and  overwhelmingly  English.  But  the  accounts  are  given  on 
unimpeachable  authority. 

"  Mr.  Jebb,  member  for  Callan  in  the  Irish  Parliament,  thus 
speaks  of  the  advance  of  the  country  in  prosperity,  in  a  pamphlet 
published  in  1798  : 

"  1  In  the  course  of  fifteen  years,  our  commerce,  our  agricult- 
ure, and  our  manufactures,  have  swelled  to  an  amount  that  the 


350 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


most  sanguine  friends  of  Ireland  would  not  have  dared  to  prog- 
nosticate. 

"  The  bankers  of  Dublin,  tolerably  competent  witnesses,  held 
a  meeting  on  the  18th  of  December,  1798,  at  which  they  re- 
solved, 6  that,  since  the  renunciation  of  Great  Britain,  in  1782, 
to  legislate  for  Ireland,  the  commerce  and  prosperity  of  this 
kingdom  have  eminently  increased/ 

"  The  Dublin  Guild  of  Merchants  did  the  same  on  the  14th 
of  January,  1797." 

But  this  testimony  and  that  of  others  whom  we  could  quote 
was  the  testimony  of  men  opposed  to  the  "  Union."  Let  us 
look  at  a  few  admissions  made  by  the  supporters  of  that  meas- 
ure : 

"  First  comes  its  author,  Mr.  Pitt,  who,  in  his  speech  in  the 
English  House  of  Commons,  January  31,  1799,  having  alluded 
to  the  prosperous  condition  of  Irish  commerce  in  1785,  goes  on 
to  say :  *  But  how  stands  the  case  now  %  The  trade  is  at  this 
time  infinitely  more  advantageous  to  Ireland.' 

"  Lord  Clare,  one  of  Mr.  Pitt's  chief  instruments  in  effecting 
the  Union,  published,  in  1798,  a  pamphlet  containing,  as  quoted 
by  Grattan,  the  following  account  of  Irish  progress  subsequently 
to  1782  :  6  There  is  not  a  nation  on  the  habitable  globe  which 
has  advanced  in  cultivation  and  commerce,  in  agriculture  and 
manufactures,  with  the  same  rapidity  in  the  same  period.' 

"  Finally,  Mr.  Secretary  Coke,  in  a  Unionist  pamphlet,  said 
at  that  time :  6  We  have  had  the  experience  of  these  twenty 
years ;  for  it  is  universally  admitted  that  no  country  in  the 
world  ever  made  such  rapid  advances  as  Ireland  has  done  in 
these  respects.'  " 

All  this  was  undoubtedly  true  ;  and  it  is  not  our  intention  to 
admire  what  was  called  the  Union,  nor  to  advocate  it.  Those 
of  the  various  writers  cited,  who  spoke  so  dogmatically  in  the 
above  passages,  had  in  their  minds  only  material  and  external 
prosperity,  and  that  even  of  only  one  class  of  citizens.  Those 
who  wish  well  to  Ireland  cannot  be  satisfied  with  this. 

Not  a  single  name  of  the  favorers  or  opposers  of  the  Union, 
here  quoted  as  witnesses,  is  Celtic.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
know  what  the  Celts  of  the  island,  that  is,  the  greater  part  of  its 
inhabitants,  thought  at  the  time,  not  of  the  Union,  but  of  their 
own  Parliament,  and  how  much  of  this  great  material  prosperity 
fell  to  their  portion. 

Surely  they  were  all  opposed  to  a  Union  which  for  a  variety 
of  reasons  had.  grown  odious  in  their  sight ;  but,  did  they,  could 
they,  approve  oi  the  acts  of  their  Legislature  prior  to  the  Union 
with  England  ?  Were  they  satisfied  with  those  tokens  of  pros- 
perity in  favor  of  a  class  which  had  systematically  oppressed 
them  ?    Even  granting  that  they  were  Christian  enough  not  to 


DELUSIVE  HOPES, 


351 


feel  envy  at  the  success  of  their  Protestant  fellow-countrymen, 
did  they  not,  and  were  they  not  right  to,  rue  the  day  which,  by 
an  act  of  that  same  Legislature,  shut  them  off  as  a  body  from  all 
those  advantages. 

For  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  was  at  the  instigation  of 
many  of  those  volunteers  who  had  been  so  ready  to  receive  the 
muskets  from  their  Catholic  neighbors,  for  the  purpose  of  strik- 
ing a  blow  for  liberty,  that  none  of  the  penal  statutes  were  re- 
pealed, and  the  Irish  Catholics  continued  to  groan,  at  least  as  far 
as  the  law  went,  under  the  fearful  oppressions  of  which  the  last 
chapter  furnished  a  feeble  sketch.  Hence,  to  speak  in  their  pres- 
ence of  their  commerce,  of  their  manufactures,  of  their  agricult- 
ure, of  the  increase  of  their  wealth,  and  so  on,  was  a  bitter  mock- 
ery, which  they  could  not  but  resent  in  their  inmost  soul. 

Was  the  cause  of  all  their  miseries  removed  by  such  a  free 
and  independent  Parliament  ?  Where  could  be  the  agricultural 
prosperity  of  a  people  which  was  not  entitled,  legally,  to  own  an 
inch  of  their  soil,  or  lease  more  than  two  acres  ot  it  ?  How  could 
they  engage  in  prosperous  trade  wrhen,  at  the  suit  of  a  "  discov- 
erer," they  were  liable  to  be  compelled  to  hand  over  to  him  the 
surplus  of  a  paltry  income  ?  How  could  they  even  contemplate 
engaging  in  any  manufactures,  when  the  laws  reduced  them  to 
the  frightful  state  of  pauperism  wThich  we  have  shudderingly 
glanced  at  %  And  those  laws  were  preserved,  and  retained  on  the 
statute-book,  by  the  very  men  who  vaunted  of  the  prosperity  of 
Ireland ! 

It  cannot,  then,  be  too  strongly  reasserted  that  the  social 
position  of  Ireland  had  experienced  no  change  whatever,  and 
that  the  separation  of  classes,  spoken  of  with  such  well-merited 
rebuke  by  Edmund  Burke,  still  stood  unaltered  : 

"  They  divided  the  nation  into  two  distinct  parties,  without 
common  interest,  sympathy,  or  connection.  One  of  these  bodies 
was  to  possess  all  the  franchises,  all  the  property,  all  the  educa- 
tion ;  the  other  was  to  be  composed  of  drawers  of  water  and 
cutters  of  turf  for  them. 

"  Every  measure  was  pleasing  and  popular  just  in  proportion 
as  it  tended  to  harass  and  ruin  a  set  of  people  who  were  looked 
upon  as  enemies  to  God  and  man  ;  and,  indeed,  as  a  race  of 
bigoted  savages,  who  were  a  disgrace  to  human  nature  itself. 

"  To  render  humanity  fit  to  be  insulted,  it  was  fit  that  it 
should  be  degraded." 

And,  even  supposing  the  prosperity  of  which  so  much  talk 
was  made  to  have  been  universal,  so  that  all  had  a  real  share  in 
it,  how  long  would  it  have  remained  so,  if  the  Irish  Parliament 
had  continued  to  exist,  and  not  become  merged  in  the  English, 
or,  as  it  was  termed,  Imperial  Legislature  ?  How  long  could 
the  two  separated  bodies,  sitting,  the  one  in  Dublin,  the  other 


352 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


in  Westminster,  have  acted  in  concert,  without  breaking  out  into 
violent  and  mutual  recrimination,  with  all  its  attendant  evils  ? 

The  difficulty  showed  itself  at  the  very  outset,  and  when  the 
first  question  of  the  relative  status  of  both  Legislatures  arose. 

Mr.  Fox,  the  great  Liberal  minister  of  the  king,  endeavored 
to  solve  this  difficulty  by  making  a  distinction  between  internal 
and  external  legislation  :  Ireland  was  never  to  be  interfered 
with  in  her  Parliament,  with  respect  to  her  internal  questions, 
while  the  English  legislative  body  possessed  the  right  to  step  in 
in  all  measures  regarding  external  legislation.  This  seems  very 
much  like  what  is  now  proposed  by  home-rule. 

Here  is  the  answer  given  to  this  in  the  tribune  of  Dublin  by 
Mr.  Walsh  :  "  With  respect  to  the  line-spun  distinction  of  the 
English  minister  between  the  internal  and  external  legislation,  it 
seems  to  me  the  most  absurd  position,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
most  ridiculous  one,  that  possibly  could  be  laid  down,  when  ap- 
plied to  an  independent  people. 

"  Ireland  is  independent,  or  she  is  not ;  if  she  is  independent, 
no  power  on  earth  can  make  laws  to  bind  her,  internally  or  ex- 
ternally, but  the  King,  Lords,  and  Commons  of  Ireland." 

Mr.  Walsh,  a  very  influential  member  of  the  Irish  House  of 
Commons,  saw,  as  doubtless  did  many  others,  cause  of  disturb- 
ance already  for  the  mutual  tranquillity  of  the  two  nations.  And, 
indeed,  his  fears  soon  showed  themselves  only  too  well  grounded. 
Dr.  Madden  tells  the  story  : 

"  A  month  had  scarcely  elapsed  since  the  opening  of  the 
new  Irish  Parliament  in  1782,  before  Lord  Abingdon,  in  the 
British  House  of  Peers,  moved  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  declaratory 
bill,  to  reassert  the  right  of  England  to  legislate  externally  for 
Ireland,  in  matters  appertaining  to  the  commerce  of  the  latter. 
A  similar  motion  was  made  in  the  British  House  of  Commons 
by  Sir  George  Young. 

"  One  clause  of  Lord  Abingdon's  bill  stated  that  Queen 
Elizabeth,  having  formerly  forbade  the  King  of  France  to  build 
more  ships  than  he  then  had,  without  her  leave  first  obtained,  it 
is  enacted  that  no  kingdoms,  as  above  stated,  Ireland  as  well  as 
others,  should  presume  to  build  a  navy  or  any  ships-of-war, 
without  leave  from  the  Lord  High  Admiral  of  England." 

It  is  easy  to  foresee  the  pretty  quarrel  preparing.  Once 
again,  then,  it  may  be  asserted  that  the  record  of  Irish  Parliaments 
is  a  sad  one. 

But  could  more  have  been  expected  of  it  ?  Is  the  scope  of 
measures,  within  the  capabilities  of  any  legislative  assembly  of 
modern  times,  comprehensive  enough  to  embrace  every  thing 
of  importance  to  a  Catholic  people,  such  as  the  Irish  nation  has 
ever  been  ? 

The  general  question  of  parliamentary  rule  is  a  very  com- 


DELUSIVE'  HOPES. 


353 


plicated  one.  The  modern  Parliament  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  the  old  assemblies  of  the  representatives  of  various  orders 
in  any  state.  With  the  Church  originated  those  ancient  institu- 
tions, which  in  certain  parts  of  Europe  partook  at  once  of  the 
twofold  nature  of  councils  and  political  assemblies. 

This  order  has  passed  away,  and  no  one  thinks  to-day  of  re- 
viving those  time-honored  institutions,  however  much  political 
writers  may  be  inclined  to  favor  despotism  on  the  one  hand,  or 
anarchy  on  the  other.  What,  then,  is  the  origin  of  the  modern 
Parliament  \  It  grew  into  being  in  England  during  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  emanating  as  it  were,  slowly, 
out  of  the  decomposition  of  the  old  Parliaments  ;  the  aristocracy, 
and  the  Church  chiefly,  losing  more  and  more  the  influence  once 
belonging  to  them,  which,  in  old  times,  made  them  paramount 
in  those  state  deliberations.  This  is  one  of  the  chief  features  of 
the  newly-modelled  British  Constitution,  which  is  of  very  recent 
growth,  and  became  fixed  and  settled  only  after  the  downfall  of 
the  Stuart  dynasty,  receiving  additional  modifications  in  the  con- 
test of  parties  under  the  Brunswick  and  Hanover  lines  of  kings. 

It  is,  consequently,  an  altogether  British  growth  of  recent 
date,  particularly  well  adapted  for  England,  whose  prosperity 
since  its  establishment  has  ever  been  on  the  increase.  But  it  is 
very  doubtful  whether  other  countries  have  derived  equal  benefit 
from  its  adoption. 

Toward  the  end  of  last  century,  some  few  Frenchmen  of  note 
attempted,  with  Mounier  at  their  head,  to  reproduce  a  feeble  copy 
of  it  in  France.  Their  failure  is  too  well  known  to  the  world  : 
how  their  English  ideas  were  scouted  by  the  people,  while  a  far 
more  radical  revolution  swept  away  every  vestige  of  the  old 
French  Constitution,  without  substituting  in  its  stead  any  thing 
save  crude  and  infidel  ideas,  which  resulted  in  anarchy. 

The  lamentable  failure  of  the  first  attempt  was  no  discourage- 
ment to  other  political  theorists  ;  and  the  century  has  witnessed 
and  still  witnesses  every  day  essays  at  English  legislation,  as  em- 
bodied in  the  constitution  of  its  Parliaments  chiefly,  all  over  Eu- 
rope ;  and  all,  as  sanguine  writers  would  have  us  believe,  to 
serve  as  the  stepping-stone  for  the  "  Universal  Republic,"  which 
is  to  regenerate  the  world. 

The  great  questions  in  all  those  assemblies  are  of  material 
interests,  material  prosperity,  material  projects.  Of  the  moral 
well-being  of  the  people  seldom  or  never  a  word  is  heard ;  and, 
whenever  a  moral  question  does  come  up  for  discussion,  the  vague- 
ness of  the  theories  advanced  and  discussed,  the  indecision  of  the 
measures  proposed,  the  want  of  unity  in  the  views  developed, 
show  how  unlit  are  modern  legislators  for  even  touching  on  what 
concerns  the  soul  of  man.  The  legislators  themselves  feel  that 
their  character  is  far  from  being  a  sacred  one,  and  that  the  spirit- 


354 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


ual  element  is  not  comprehended  in  their  world.  And  they  are 
certainly  right. 

Even  the  measures  of  external  policy  are  not  universally  suc- 
cessful in  securing  the  material  well-being  of  the  people.  In 
France,  at  least,  the  various  legislatures  which  have  succeeded  one 
another  have  perhaps  been  productive  of  as  much  harm  in  that 
regard  as  the  liberty  of  the  press  and  freedom  of  public  discus- 
sion, which  have  always  had  and  always  will  have  their  ardent 
advocates,  and  the  existence  of  which  is  compatible  with  public 
order  in  some  countries,  but  not  in  others. 

The  same,  with  certain  reservations,  is  true  of  the  Spanish- 
American  republics,  Brazil,  and  now  of  Spain,  Italy,  and  other 
European  nations.  The  legislative  machine  which  is  found  to 
work  so  well  in  England,  and  what  were  or  still  are  her  colonies, 
seems  to  get  out  ot  order  in  climates  and  among  nations  unac- 
customed to  it,  even  as  far  as  material  prosperity  is  concerned. 

But  it  is  neither  our  object  to  write  a  history  of  Parliaments, 
nor  absolutely  to  condemn  those  modern  institutions  by  the  few 
words  devoted  to  them.  All  we  wish  to  insist  upon  is,  that  all 
the  evils  of  nations  are  not  cured  bv  them,  and  that  they  should 
not  be  taken  as  in  themselves  absolutely  desirable  and  all-suffi- 
cient. 

As  to  their  probable  fate  in  the  future,  their  modern  dress 
is  not  yet  two  centuries  old,  and  the  seeds  of  decay  already  ap- 
pear in  many  places.  A  few  questions  are  sufficient  to  demon- 
strate this :  Can  a  Parliament,  as  understood  to-day,  last  for  any 
length  of  time  and  work  successfully,  when  composed  for  a  great 
part  of  corrupt  legislators  who  have  been  returned  by  corrupt 
electors  ?  Has  not  the  progress  of  corruption  on  both  sides, 
elected  and  electors,  been  of  late  alarmingly  on  the  increase  % 
TVhat  space  of  time  is  requisite  for  legislation  to  come  to  a  stand- 
still, and  prove  to  modern  nations  the  impossibility  of  carrying 
on  even  material  affairs  with  such  corrupt  machinery  i  It  requires 
no  great  foresight  to  reply  to  these  questions. 

And  yet  it  is  on  this  tottering  institution  that  the  Ireland  of 
our  days  has  set  her  hope.  She  imagines  that,  this  once  gained, 
prosperity  and  happiness  are  insured;  that,  without  it,  she  can- 
not but  be  discontented,  as  she  is  and  must  be  if  she  possesses 
any  feeling.  And  such  is  the  anomaly  of  her  position  that,  with 
this  conviction  firmly  set  before  us,  we  believe  she  is  right  in 
demanding  home-rule,  and  that  by  insisting  upon  it  she  will 
eventually  attain  it ;  yet  are  we  convinced  that,  having  obtained 
it,  her  evils  will  not  be  cured,  nor  her  happiness  served.  TVe 
prize  her  highly  enough  to  think  her  worthy  of  something  better, 
which  4%  something  n  we  are  sure  God  keeps  in  reserve  for  her. 

Suppose  her  earnest  wish  granted,  and  a  home  Parliament 
given  her.    Suppose  even  the  old  question  of  her  relations  with 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


355 


the  English  Legislature  determined.  A  great  difficulty  has  been 
settled  satisfactorily,  though  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  this  may 
come  about.  But  supposing  the  questions  for  her  discussion  and 
free  determination  being  clearly  defined,  home-rule  becomes  pos- 
sible without  exciting  the  opposition  of  the  rival  Parliament  of 
Great  Britain. 

What  is  likely  to  be  the  composition  of  her  state  institution  ? 
and  what  the  programme  of  its  labors  % 

In  the  composition  of  her  two  Houses,  if  she  have  two,  the 
Catholics  will  not  be  excluded  as  they  were  in  1782  ;  a  great 
change  certainly,  and  fraught  no  doubt  with  great  benefit  to  the 
country.  But  will  the  English  element  cease  to  predominate? 
The  native  race  has  been  kept  so  long  in  a  state  of  bondage  that 
few  members  of  it  certainly  will  take  a  leading  part  in  the  dis- 
cussions. How  many  even  will  be  allowed  to  influence  the  elec- 
tion of  members  by  their  votes  or  their  capacity  ?  Universal  suf- 
frage can  scarcely  be  anticipated,  perhaps  even  it  would  not  be 
desirable.  The  question  is  certainly  a  doubtful  one.  Of  one 
thing  are  we  certain  regarding  the  composition  of  an  Irish  Par- 
liament :  it  would  not  really  represent  the  nation. 

For  the  nation  is  Catholic  to  the  core ;  the  sufferings  of  more 
than  two  centuries  have  made  religion  dearer  to  her  than  life ; 
all  she  has  been,  all  she  is  to-day,  may  be  summed  up  in  one 
word — Catholic.  Nothing  has  been  left  her  but  this  proud  and 
noble  title,  which  of  all  others  her  enemies  would  have  wrested 
from  her.  The  nation  exists  to-day,  independently  of  parliamen- 
tary enactments,  in  spite  of  the  numberless  parliamentary  de- 
crees of  former  times ;  she  is  living,  active,  working,  and  doing 
wonders,  which  ^hall  come  under  notice.  See  how  busy  she  has 
been  since  first  allowed  to  do.  Her  altars,  her  religious  houses, 
her  asylums,  every  thing  holy  that  was  in  ruins — all  have  been 
restored. 

Not  satisfied  with  working  so  energetically  on  her  own  soil, 
she  has  crossed  over  to  England,  where  the  great  and  unex- 
pected Catholic  revival,  which  has  struck  such  awe  and  fear  into 
the  hearts  of  sectarians,  is  in  great  measure  due  to  her. 

Cross  the  broad  Atlantic,  and  even  the  vast  Southern  Ocean, 
and  the  contemplation  of  Irish  activity  in  North  America, 
Australia,  and  all  the  English  colonies,  the  intense  vitality  dis- 
played by  this  so  long  down-trodden  people  is  amazing.  But  all 
this  activity,  all  this  vitality,  is  employed  in  establishing  on 
a  firm  and  indestructible  basis  everywhere  the  holy  Catholic 
Church. 

Looking  on  all  this,  say  then  whether  Ireland  is  truly  Cath- 
olic, whether  the  nation  is  any  thing  but  Catholic. 
But  can  her  new  Parliament  be  Catholic  ? 
No  !  No  one  imagines  such  a  thing  possible^;  no  one  thinks, 


356  DELUSIVE  HOPES. 

no  one  dreams  of  it.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  it  cannot  represent 
the  nation. 

Who  will  go  to  compose  it  ?  Men  who  will  discard — such  is 
the  modern  expression — discard  their  creed,  and  leave  it  at  the 
door.  Nothing  better  can  be  expected.  It  is  true  that  the  bitter 
feeling  engendered  for  so  long  a  time  by  religious  questions  is 
not  likely  to  show  itself  again  ;  or  though,  to  speak  more  correct- 
ly, a  religious  question  never  was  raised  in  Ireland,  the  whole 
people  being  one  on  that  subject ;  but  it  may  be  hoped  that  the 
bitter  persecution  against  every  thing  Catholic  is  not  likely  to 
recur,  whatever  may  be  the  composing  elements  of  the  new 
Houses  of  Parliament. 

In  the  impossibility  of  even  guessing  at  the  probable  opinions 
of  the  men  who  are  to  have  the  future  fate  of  Ireland  in  their 
hands,  it  may  be  fairly  predicted  that,  within  their  legislative 
halls,  religious  and  consequently  moral  questions  will  only  be 
approached  in  the  spirit  of  liberalism.  Probably,  the  only  thing 
attempted  will  be  the  rendering  of  the  people  externally  happy 
and  prosperous,  supposing  the  majority  of  the  members  animated 
by  true  patriotic  principles ;  and  indeed  the  aspirations  of  all 
who  wish  well  to  Ireland  are  limited  to  external  or  material 
prosperity  ;  and,  for  our  own  part,  we  do  not  consider  this  of 
slight  moment.    But  is  this  all  that  the  Irish  people  require  ? 

They  have  been  brought  so  low  in  the  scale  of  humanity  that 
every  thing  has  to  be  accomplished  to  bring  about  their  resurrec- 
tion ;  and  the  "every  thing"  is  comprised  in  substituting  flesh- 
meat  for  potatoes  and  good  warm  clothing  for  rags.  Whoever 
says  that  the  Irish  people  can  be  contented  with  such  a  restora- 
tion as  this,  knows  little  of  their  noble  nature,  and  has  never 
read  their  heart. 

Assuredly,  they  have  a  right  to  those  worldly  blessings  of 
which  they  have  been  so  long  deprived ;  and  we  would  not  be 
understood  as  saying  that  one  of  the  primary  objects  of  good 
government  is  not  to  confer  those  material  blessings  on  the 
people  ;  nay,  it  is  our  belief  that,  when  a  whole  nation  has  been 
so  long  subjected  to  all  the  evils  which  not  only  render  this  life 
miserable,  but  absolutely  intolerable,  it  is  incumbent  on  those 
intrusted  with  the  direction  of  affairs  to  remedy  those  evils 
instantly,  and  endeavor  to  make  the  people  forget  their  misfor- 
tunes by,  at  least,  the  enjoyments  of  this  life's  ordinary  comforts. 
Forgetfulness  of  the  past  can  be  obtained  by  no  other  means. 
And  this  is  a  very  simple,  but,  at  the  same  time,  very  satisfactory 
answer  to  the  question  so  often  put  and  so  often  replied  to  in 
such  a  variety  of  ways,  "  Why  is  Ireland  discontented  \ " 

But,  while  admitting  the  truth,  nay,  the  necessity  of  all  this, 
the  government  of  a  Catholic  people  has  not  fulfilled  its  whole 
duty  when  it  has  exerted  itself  to  the  utmost  to  procure,  and 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


357 


filially  succeeded  in  procuring,  the  temporal  happiness  of  the 
nation.  In  addition  to  this,  it  must  consult  its  moral  and  reli- 
gious wants,  or  a  great  part  of  its  duty  remains  neglected. 

This,  indeed,  does  not  nowadays  occur  to  the  minds  of  the 
majority  of  men,  who  have,  it  would  appear,  agreed  among  them- 
selves to  consider  it  an  axiom  of  government  that  the  rulers  of 
a  people  should  have  no  other  object  in  view  than  the  material 
comfort  and  welfare  of  the  masses.  They  do  not  reflect  that  the 
wants  of  a  nation  must  be  satisfied  in  their  entirety,  and  that  its 
moral  and  religious  needs  are  of  no  less  importance,  to  say  the 
least,  than  the  temporal.  This  is  evident  in  all  those  countries 
where,  in  imitation  of  England,  or  at  her  instigation,  parliamen- 
tary governments  are  now  in  operation — countries  which  include 
not  only  Europe,  without  excepting  Greece  and  her  chief  islands, 
but  Southern  Africa  at  the  Cape,  America,  Isorth  and  South, 
Australia,  and  the  large  islands  of  Jamaica,  Tasmania,  Xew 
Zealand,  and  several  groups  of  Polynesia,  preparing  Asia  for  the 
boon  which,  probably,  is  destined  to  show  itself  in  Japan  first, 
spreading  thence  all  over  the  largest  continent  of  the  world. 

Wherever  modern  Parliaments  flourish,  there  material  inter- 
ests alone  are  consulted.  This  is  a  new  feature  of  Japhetism  ; 
and  God  alone  knows  how  long  nations  will  be  satisfied  with 
such  a  state  of  things ! 

But  if  non-Catholic  nations  thus  limit  their  aspirations,  there 
is  all  the  more  reason  why  a  Catholic  people  cannot  imitate 
them  in  such  a  course,  particularly  if  that  people  has  for  cen- 
turies submitted  to  every  evil  of  this  life  in  order  to  preserve  its 
religion,  showing  that,  in  its  eyes,  religious  blessings  rank  far 
above  all  imaginable  material  advantages  ;  and  we  all  know  such 
to  be  the  case  for  Ireland. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  what  are  those  religious  wants  which 
must  be  satisfied,  and  how  are  we  to  know  them  ?  The  answer, 
to  a  Catholic,  is  plain,  and  nothing  is  easier  of  recognition. 
What  the  spiritual  guides  of  the  nation  consider  of  paramount 
importance  and  of  absolute  necessity,  is  of  that  character,  and 
the  government  which  neglects  to  listen  to  remonstrances  coming 
from  such  a  quarter,  shows  thereby  that  it  is  ignorant  of,  or 
slights,  its  plain  duty.  Ever  since  the  load  of  tyranny,  which 
weighed  down  the  Irish  people,  has  been  removed,  if  not  entirely, 
at  least  suffered  a  very  appreciable  reduction,  since  the  rulers  of 
the  Church  in  that  unhappy  country  have  been  able  to  lift  up 
their  voice,  and  proclaimed  what  they  considered  of  supreme 
importance  to  those  under  their  charge,  is  it  not  a  strange  truth 
that  their  voice  has  never  ceased  remonstrating,  and  that,  at  this 
very  moment,  it  is  as  loud  in  protestation  as  ever  ?  When  has  it 
been  listened  to  as  it  should  be?  Is  it  likely  to  meet  more 
regard  if  Ireland  obtains  home-rule  \    It  grieves  us  to  say  that 


353 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


the  only  answer  which  can  be  given  to  this  last  question  is  still 
an  emphatic  "  No ! " 

And  for  the  very  simple  reason,  already  given,  that  Ireland 
cannot  have  a  truly  Catholic  Parliament,  and  that  all  the  great 
measures  which  would  occupy  the  attention  of  the  Catholic 
members,  in  the  event  of  their  meeting  at  Dublin,  would  be 
shemes  for  the  advancement  of  manufactures,  trade,  the  con- 
struction of  ships,  tenant-right  laws,  etc. ;  all  very  excellent  things 
in  their  way,  and  to  which  Ireland  has  an  undoubted  right, 
which  will  be  strongly  contested,  and  in  the  struggle  for  which 
she  may  again  be  worsted ;  which,  even  if  she  obtains,  will  not 
enable  her  to  compete  with  England,  and  which,  after  and  above 
all,  do  not  correspond  to  the  heart-beat  of  the  nation — the  res- 
toration complete  and  entire  of  the  Catholic  Church  all  over  her 
broad  land. 

It  may  be  well  to  remark  that  the  broad  assertion  just  laid 
down  involves  no  reprisals  against  the  rights  of  the  minority. 
That  minority,  backed  by  the  English  Government,  has  enjoyed 
nearly  three  centuries  of  oppression  and  tyranny,  has  taxed  hu- 
man ingenuity  to  the  utmost  for  the  purpose  of  concocting 
schemes  of  destruction  against  the  majority  :  it  has  failed.  The 
majority,  which  at  last  breathes  freely,  can  well  afford  not  to 
raise  a  finger  iu  retaliation,  and  to  leave  what  is  called  freedom 
of  conscience  to  those  who  so  long  refused  it.  The  result  may 
be  left  to  the  operation  of  natural  laws  and  the  holy  workings 
of  Providence.  But  their  religious  rights  ought,  at  least,  to  be 
secured  to  them  entire ;  the  rights  ot  their  Church  to  be  left 
forever  perfectly  free  and  untrammelled. 

But,  how  much  has  been  done  against  this,  even  of  late  ? 
Why  has  a  Protestant  university  so  many  privileges,  while  a 
similar  Catholic  institution  is  refused  recognition  ?  To  answer 
what  purpose  have  the  Queen's  Colleges  been  established  ?  The 
Catholic  bishops  certainly  possess  rights  with  regard  to  the  edu- 
cation of  their  flocks ;  with  what  persistence  have  not  those 
rights  been  either  attacked  or  circumvented  !  If  the  Protestant 
Establishment  has  been  finally  abolished,  have  not  its  ministers 
obtained  by  the  very  act  of  abolition  concessions  which  give 
them  still  great  weight,  morally  and  materially,  in  the  scale 
opposed  to  Catholic  proselytism,  nay,  preservation  8  Is  it  not  a 
stain  even  yet,  if  not  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  at  least  in  that  of  the 
English  colonized  in  Ireland,  to  be  a  "  Roman  Catholic  ?  "  Is 
"souperism"  so  completely  dead  that  it  never  can  revive?  How 
many  means  are  still  left  in  the  hands  ot  the  Protestant  minority 
to  vex,  annoy,  and  impoverish  the  supposed  free  majority  I 

Whoever  considers  the  matter  seriously  cannot  but  acknowl- 
edge that  in  Ireland  there  exists  still  a  vast  amount  of  open  or 
silent  opposition  to  the  Church  of  the  majority,  and  a  Church 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


359 


which  the  majority  loves  with  such  deep  affection  that,  so  long 
as  the  least  remnant  of  the  old  oppression  remains,  so  long  must 
Ireland  remain  discontented. 

And  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  home-rule  would 
be  a  sufficient  remedy  for  such  a  state  of  things,  owing  to  the  fact, 
already  insisted  upon,  that  the  new  Parliament  could  not  be  a 
Catholic  Parliament. 

The  reader  may  easily  perceive  what  was  meant  by  saying 
that  the  entire  restoration  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  island 
does  not  suppose  the  consequent  extirpation  of  heresy ;  but  it 
clearly  supposes  the  perfectly  free  exercise  of  all  her  rights  by 
the  Church.    Nothing  short  of  this  can  satisfy  the  Irish  people. 

III.  We  pass  on  to  the  consideration  of  a  third  delusive  hope, 
that  of  the  people  regaining  all  their  rights  by  the  overwhelming 
force  of  numbers  and  armed  resistance  to  tyranny — the  advocacy 
of  physical  force,  as  it  is  called ;  in  other  words,  the  right  and 
necessity  of  open  insurrection,  or  underhand  and  secret  associa- 
tions, evidently  requiring  for  success  the  cooperation  of  the 
numerous  revolutionary  societies  of  Europe :  a  criminal  delusion, 
which  has  brought  many  evils  upon  the  country,  and  which  is 
still  cherished  by  too  many  of  her  sons.  Though  we  purpose 
speaking  freely  on  this  subject,  we  hope  that  our  language  may 
be  that  of  moderation  and  justice. 

To  a  Catholic,  who  has  either  witnessed  or  heard  of  the 
frightful  evils  brought  on  modern  nations  by  the  doctrine  of  the 
right  of  insurrection,  of  armed  force,  of  open  rebellion,  against 
real  or  fancied  wrong,  that  doctrine  cannot  but  be  loathsome 
and  detestable. 

True,  there  is  for  nations,  as  for  individuals,  something  re- 
sembling the  right  of  self-defence.  No  Catholic  theologian  can 
assert  that  a  people  is  bound  to  bow  under  the  yoke  of  tyranny, 
when  it  can  shake  that  tyranny  off ;  and  it  is  this  truth  which 
affords  a  pretext  to  many  advocates  of  what  is  called  the  right 
of  insurrection.  Moreover,  there  is  no  doubt  that,  in  the  case  of 
Ireland  particularly,  the  Irish  had  for  many  centuries  a  legiti- 
mate government  of  their  own,  and  when  attacked  by  foreigners, 
who  landed  on  their  shores  under  whatever  pretext,  they  had  a 
perfect  right,  nay,  it  was  the  duty  of  the  heads  of  clans,  the  pro- 
vincial kings  and  princes,  to  protect  the  whole  nation,  and  the 
part  of  it  intrusted  to  their  special  care  in  particular,  against 
open  or  covert  foes.  The  name  of  "  rebels  "  was  given  them  by 
the  invaders,  with  no  shadow  of  possible  pretext,  and  the  name 
was  as  justly  resented  as  it  was  unjustly  applied. 

Under  the  Stuart  dynasty  the  state  of  the  case  is  still  more 
clear  :  for  then  they  were  fi^htimr  on  the  side  of  the  English  sov- 
ereigns  to  whom  they  had  submitted  ;  and,  in  waging  war  against 
the  enemies  of  their  king  and  country,  they  were  not  only 


360 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


enforcing  their  right,  bnt  performing  a  highly-meritorious  and  in 
some  cases  heroic  duty.  Yet  the  name  of  u  rebels  "  was  again 
applied  to  them,  and  its  penalty  inflicted  upon  them,  as  has  been 
seen. 

After  their  complete  subjugation,  the  right  of  retaliating  on 
their  oppressors,  even  if  justifiable  in  theory,  was  often  illusory 
and  indefensible  in  fact,  because  of  the  impossibility  of  successful 
resistance ;  and  the  secret  associations  known  under  the  names 
of  "  Tories,"  "  Rapparees,"  "  White  Boys,"  "  Ribbonmen," 
were,  with  the  exception  of  the  first,  condemned  by  the  Church. 

But  in  modern  times  the  right  of  insurrection  cannot  possibly 
be  defended,  if,  as  can  scarcely  be  avoided,  the  cause  of  a  Catho- 
lic nation  is  linked  with  the  various  revolutionary  societies  and 
conspiracies  which  disgrace  modem  Europe,  endanger  society, 
and  have  all  been  condemned  bv  the  sovereign  Pontnf. 

An  extensive  discussion  of  both  cases — the  stubborn  resistance 
made  after  the  fall  of  the  Stuarts,  and  some  of  the  attempts  at 
independence  of  later  times — would  show  at  once  the  difference 
between  the  two  cases,  and  prevent  thinking  men  from  ranking 
the  "  Tories  "  of  ancient  times  with  the  avowed  revolutionists  of 
our  davs.  Mr.  Prendergast  has  given  a  fair  sketch  of  the  former 
in  the  second  edition  of  his  u  Cromwellian  Settlement." 

The  reader  who  may  peruse  this  very  interesting  account 
can  notice  a  remarkable  coincidence ;  one,  however,  which  to 
our  knowledge  has  not  yet  been  pointed  out :  the  very  scenes 
enacted  in  Ireland,  during  the  long  resistance  offered  to  oppres- 
sion after  the  downfall  of  the  Stuart  dvnastv,  were  reenacted  in 
France  during  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and  for  some  time  after, 
throughout  the  districts  which  had  risen  in  insurrection  against 
the  tvranny  of  the  Convention,  and  both  cases  were  certainlv 
examples  of  right  warring  against  might. 

In  fact,  to  a  person  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  violent 
changes  which,  during  the  last  century,  modern-  theories,  meta- 
physical systems,  and,  above  all,  the  working  of  secret  societies, 
have  caused,  the  reading  of  the  history  of  England  and  Ireland, 
from  the  Reformation  down,  offers  new  sources  of  interest,  by 
showing  how  the  last  frightful  convulsion  in  France  was  merely 
a  copy  of  the  first  in  England,  at  least  as  far  as  the  means  em- 
ployed in  each  go,  if  not  in  the  ultimate  object. 

In  England  the  revolution  was  begun  by  the  monarch  him- 
self,  with  a  view  of  rendering  his  power  more  absolute  and  uni- 
versal by  the  rejection  of  the  papal  supremacy,  and.  consequent- 
ly, the  destruction  of  the  Catholic  Church,  tn  France  the  revo- 
lution was  begun  by  the  leaders  of  the  middle  classes,  who  made 
use  of  the  immense  power  given  them  by  the  secret  societies 
which  then  flourished,  and  the  influence  of  an  unbridled  press, 
to  destroy  royalty  and  aristocracy,  that  they  might  themselves 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


361 


obtain  the  supreme  power  and  rule  the  country.  The  object  of 
the  two  revolutions  was  therefore  widely  different ;  but  the 
means  employed  in  bringing  them  about,  when  considered  in 
detail,  are  found  to  have  been  perfectly  identical. 

In  both  countries,  on  the  side  of  the  revolutionary  party  or 
of  the  National  Assembly,  various  oaths  were  imposed  and  en- 
forced, troops  dispatched,  battles  fought,  devastating  bands  rav- 
aged the  country  while  in  a  state  of  insurrection,  theasame  bar- 
barous orders  in  La  Vendee  as  in  Ireland,  so  that  the  language 
even  employed  in  the  second  case  is  an  exact  counterpart  of  that 
in  the  first.  There  is  destruction  resolved  upon ;  then  the  au- 
thorities desisting  and  resolving  on  a  change  of  policy,  though 
with  a  rigid  continuance  of  the  police  measures,  including  in 
both  cases  "  domiciliary  visits,"  inquests  by  commissioners, 
courts-martial  in  the  first,  case,  revolutionary  tribunals  in  the 
second — consequent  wholesale  executions  on  both  sides.  There 
were  the  decrees  of  confiscation  carried  out  with  the  utmost  bar- 
barity, resulting  in  sudden  changes  of  fortune,  the  class  that  was 
aristocratic  being  often  reduced  to  beggary,  while  its  wealth  was 
enjoyed  by  the  new  men  of  the  middle  classes.  The  peasants 
derive  very  little  benefit  from  the  revolution  in  France — none 
whatever,  or  rather  the  very  reverse  of  benefit,  in  Ireland. 
And,  to  go  into  the  minutest  details,  there  are  the  same  inform- 
ers, spies,  troops  of  armed  police,  or  adventurers  on  the  hunt  to 
discover,  prosecute,  and  destroy  the  last  remnants  of  the  insur- 
gents in  France  as  well  as  in  Ireland. 

In  considering  the  religious  side  of  the  question,  the  parallel 
would  be  found  still  more  striking,  as  the  proscribed  ministers 
of  religion  were  of  the  same  faith  in  France  as  in  the  British 
Isles,  while  the  means  adopted  for  their  destruction  were  ex- 
actly similar. 

On  the  side  of  the  insurgents  the  same  comparison  holds 
good.  In  both  cases  there  is  the  first  refusal  to  obey  unjust  de- 
crees, the  same  stubborn  opposition  to  more  stringent  acts  of 
legislature,  the  emigration  of  the  aristocratic  classes,  the  devoted- 
ness  of  the  clergy,  with  here  and  there  an  unfortunate  exception, 
the  same  mode  of  concealment  resorted  to — false  doors,  traps, 
secret  closets,  disguise,  etc. ;  the  flying  to  the  country  and  con- 
cealment in  woods,  caves,  hills,  or  mountains ;  and,  when  the 
burden  grows  intolerable,  and  open  resistance,  even  without 
hope  of  success,  becomes  inevitable,  there  are  the  same  resources, 
method  of  organization,  attack,  call  to  arms,  call  to  Heaven,  the 
same  heroism  :  yes,  and  the  same  approval  of  religion  and  ad- 
miration of  all  noble  hearts  throughout  the  world. 

The  only  difference  consists  in  the  fact  that  in  France  the 
struggle  lasted  a  few  years  only  ;  in  Ireland,  centuries.  In 
France  the  fury  of  the  revolution  soon  spent  itself  in  horrors ; 


362 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


in  Ireland  the  sternness  of  the  persecuting  power  stood  grim  and 
unrelaxing  for  ages,  adding  decree  to  decree,  army  to  army.  In 
France,  numerous  hunters  of  priests  and  of  "brigands,"  as  they 
were  called,  nourished  only  for  a  short  decade  of  years ;  in  Ire- 
land similar  hunters  of  priests  and  of  "  Tories  "  carried  on  their 
infamous  trade  for  more  than  a  century. 

In  the  case  of  the  latter  country,  too,  the  confiscation  was 
much  more  thorough  and  permanent,  the  emigration  complete 
and  final ;  but,  in  both  cases,  the  Catholic  religion  outlived  the 
storm,  and  lifted  up  her  head  more  gloriously  ihan  ever  as  soon 
as  its  fury  had  abated. 

Finally,  to  come  to  the  point,  which  calls  now  more  immedi- 
ately for  attention,  if  the  campaigns  of  Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  of 
Brunswick,  and  Sarsfield,  were  the  models  of  the  great  insurrec- 
tion of  La  Vendee  and  Brittany,  the  bands  of  "  Tories "  and 
"rebels,"  scattered  through  Ireland  at  the  time  of  the  Cromwell- 
ian  settlement,  gave  an  example  for  the  "  Chouan  "  raids  which 
in  France  followed  the  blasted  hopes  of  the  royalists. 

How  ought  both  cases  to  be  considered  with  reference  to  the 
general  rules  of  morality  ?  How  were  they  considered  at  the 
time  by  religious  and  conscientious  men  ? 

There  is  no  doubt  that  excesses  were  committed  by  Tories  in 
Ireland,  and  Chouans  in  France^  which  every  Christian  must 
condemn ;  but  there  can  also  be  little  doubt  that  such  of  them 
as  were  not  deranged  by  passion,  but  allowed  their  inborn  reli- 
gious feelings  to  speak  even  in  those  dreadful  times,  were  re- 
strained, either  by  their  own  consciences  or  by  the  advice  of  the 
men  of  God  whom  they  consulted,  from  committing  many 
crimes  which  would  otherwise  have  resulted  from  their  unfor- 
tunate position.  All  this,  however,  resolves  itself  into  a  con- 
sideration of  individual  cases  which  cannot  here  be  taken  into 
account. 

Our  only  question  is  the  cause  of  both  Tories  and  Chouans 
in  the  abstract.  From  the  beginning  it  was  clearly  a  desperate 
cause,  and,  admitting  that  the  motive  which  prompted  it  was 
generous,  honorable,  and  praiseworthy,  nothing  could  be  ex- 
pected to  ensue  from  its  advocacy  but  accumulated  disaster  and 
greater  misfortunes  still.  Of  either  case,  then,  abstractly  con- 
sidered, religion  cannot  speak  with  favor. 

But,  when  an  impartial  and  fair-minded  man  takes  into  con- 
sideration all  the  circumstances  of  both  cases,  particularly  of  that 
presented  in  Ireland,  as  given  by  Mr.  Prendergast,  with  all  the 
glaring  injustice,  atrocious  proceedings,  and  barbarous  cruelty  of 
the  opposing  party  taken  into  account,  who  will  dare  say  that 
men,  driven  to  madness  by  such  an  accumulation  of  misery  and 
torture,  were  really  accountable  before  God  for  all  the  conse- 
quences resulting  from  their  wretched  position  % 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


363 


In  the  words  quoted  by  the  author  of  the  "  Cromwellian  Set- 
tlement : "  "  Had  they  not  a  right  to  live  on  their  own  soil  ? 
were  they  obliged  in  conscience  to  go  to  a  foreign  country,  with 
the  indelible  mark  left  on  them  by  an  atrocious  and  originally 
illegitimate  government  ? "  And,  if  the  simple  act  of  remaining 
in  their  country,  to  which  they  had  undoubtedly  a  right,  forced 
them  to  live  as  outlaws,  and  adopt  a  course  of  predatory  warfare, 
otherwise  unjustifiable,  but  in  their  circumstances  the  only  one 
possible  for  them,  to  whom  could  the  fault  be  ascribed  %  Are 
they  to  be  judged  harshly  as  criminals  and  felons,  worthy  only 
of  the  miserable  end  to  which  all  of  them,  sooner  or  later,  were 
doomed  ?  Is  all  the  reproach  and  abuse  to  be  lavished  on  them, 
and  not  a  breath  of  it  to  fall  on  those  who  made  them  what  they 
were  %  Who  of  us  could  say  whether,  if  placed  in  the  same  po- 
sition, he  would  not  have  considered  the  life  they  led,  and  the 
inevitable  death  they  faced,  as  the  only  path  of  duty  and  honor  ? 

We  are  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  first  Irish  "  Tories  " 
deemed  it  their  right  to  make  themselves  the  avengers  of  Ire- 
land's wrongs,  and  consider  themselves  as  true  patriots  and  the 
heroic  defenders  of  their  country,  and  that  many  honorable  and 
conscientious  men  then  living  agreed  with  them.  And  the  peo- 
ple, who  always  sided  with  and  aided  them,  had  after  all  certain- 
ly a  right  to  their  opinion  as  the  only  true  representatives  of  the 
country  left  in  those  unfortunate  times. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  right  of  resistance  on  the 
part  of  the  old  "  Tories  ; "  we  now  ccme  to  what  has  been  called 
the  second  case — the  right  of  insurrection  advocated  by  modern 
revolutionists,  chiefly  when  connected  with  the  unlawful  organi- 
zations so  widely  spread  to-day.  This,  indeed,  is  the  great  delu- 
sive hope  of  to-day,  which  must  be  gone  into  more  thoroughly, 
in  order  to  show  that  Ireland,  instead  of  encouraging  among  her 
children  the  slightest  attachment  to  the  modern  revolutionary 
spirit,  ought  to  insist  on  their  all,  if  faithful  to  the  noble  princi- 
ples of  their  forefathers,  opposing  it,  as  indeed  the  great  mass  of 
the  nation  has  opposed  it,  strenuously,  though  it  has  met  with 
the  almost  constant  support  of  England,  who  has  spread  it  broad- 
cast to  suit  her  own  purposes.  Ireland's  hope  must  come  from 
another  quarter. 

Let  us  look  clearly  at  the  origin  and  nature  of  this  revolution- 
ary spirit,  so  different  from  the  lawful  right  of  resistance  always 
advocated  by  the  great  Catholic  theologians. 

The  nature  of  this  spirit  is  to  produce  violent  changes  in 
government  and  society  by  violent  means ;  and  it  originated  in 
first  weakening  and  then  destroying  the  power  of  the  Popes  over 
Christendom.  Two  words  only  need  be  said  on  both  these  in- 
teresting topics — words  which,  we  hope,  may  be  clear  and  con- 
vincing. 


364 


DELUSIVE  nOPES. 


The  very  word  revolutionary  indicates  violence ;  and  it  is  so 
understood  by  all  who  use  it  with  a  knowledge  of  its  meaning. 
A  revolutionary  proceeding  in  a  state,  is  one  which  is  sanctioned 
neither  by  the  law  nor  the  constitution,  but  is  rapidly  carried  on 
for  any  purpose  whatever.  Yiolence  has  always  been  used  in 
the  various  revolutions  of  modern  times,  and,  when  people  talk 
of  a  peaceful  revolution,  it  is  at  once  understood  that  the  term  is 
not  used  in  its  ordinary  significance. 

On  this  point,  probably,  all  are  agreed  ;  and,  therefore,  there 
is  no  need  of  further  explanation.  On  the  other  hand,  many 
will  be  inclined  to  controvert  the  second  proposition  ;  and,  there- 
fore, its  unquestionable  truth  must  be  shown. 

That  the  position  held  by  the  Popes  at  the  head  of  Christen- 
dom for  many  ages  was  of  paramount  influence,  and  that  to 
them,  in  fact,  is  due  the  existence  of  the  state  of  Europe,  known 
as  Christendom,  is  now  admitted  almost  by  all  since  the  investiga- 
tions of  learned  and  painstaking  historians,  Protestants  as  well 
Catholics,  have  been  given  to  the  world.  But  had  the  Popes  any 
particular  line  of  policy,  and  did  they  favor  one  kind  of  govern- 
ment more  than  another  ?  This  is  a  very  fair  question,  and  well 
worthy  of  consideration. 

Any  kind  of  government  is  good  only  according  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  nation  subjected  to  it.  What  may  suit  one 
people  would  not  give  happiness  to  another,  and  democratic, 
aristocratic,  or  monarchical  governments,  have  each  their  respec- 
tive uses,  so  that  none  of  them  can  be  condemned  or  approved 
absolutely.  No  one  will  ever  be  able  to  show  that  the  Koman 
Pontiffs  held  any  exclusive  theory  on  this  subject,  and  adopted 
a  stern  policy  from  which  they  did  not  recede. 

But  a  positive  line  of  policy  they  did  hold  to,  namely,  the 
insuring  the  stability  of  society  by  securing  the  stability  of  gov- 
ernments. 

Whoever  reads  the  life  of  Gregory  VII.  side  by  side  with  that 
of  William  the  Conqueror,  is  at  first  astonished  to  find  Hilde- 
brand,  who,  though  not  yet  Pope,  was  already  powerful  in  the 
counsels  of  the  Papacy,  favoring  the  Norman  king,  although 
William  eventually  proved  far  from  grateful.  But,  when  the 
reader  comes  to  inquire  what  can  have  moved  the  great  monk  to 
take  up  this  line  of  action,  he  will  find  that  a  deep  political 
motive  lay  at  the  bottom  of  it,  which  throws  a  flood  of  light  over 
the  policy  of  the  Popes  and  the  history  of  Europe  during  the 
middle  ages.  He  finds  Hildebrand  persuaded  that  William  of 
Normandy  possessed  the  true  hereditary  right  to  the  crown  of 
England,  and  the  policy  of  the  Popes  was  already  in  favor  of 
hereditary  right  in  kingdoms,  thereby  to  insure  the  stability  of 
dynasties,  and  consequently  that  of  society  itself. 

Harold,  son  of  Godwin,  belonged  in  no  way  to  the  royal  race 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


365 


of  Anglo-Saxon  kings.  The  Dukes  of  Normandy  had  contracted 
alliances  by  marriage  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  monarehs,  and  were 
thought  to  be  more  nearly  related  to  Edward  the  Confessor  than 
Harold,  whose  only  title  was  derived  from  his  sister. 

What  had  been  the  state  of  Europe  up  to  that  time  ?  Since 
the  establishment  and  conversion  of  the  northern  races,  a  con- 
stant change  of  rulers,  an  ever-recurring  moving  of  territorial 
limits,  and  consequently  an  endless  disturbance  in  all  that 
secures  the  stability  of  rights,  was  common  everywhere  :  in  Eng- 
land, under  the  heptarchy  ;  in  France,  under  the  Carlovingians  ; 
in  the  various  states  of  Germany  ;  everywhere,  except,  perhaps, 
in  a  part  of  Italy,  where  small  republics  were  springing  up  from 
municipal  communes,  which  were  better  adapted  to  the  wants 
of  the  people. 

The  great  evils  of  those  times  were  owing  to  these  perpetual 
changes,  which  all  came  from  the  undefined  rights  of  succession 
to  power,  as  left  by  Charlemagne  ;  a  striking  proof  that  a  mon- 
arch may  be  a  man  of  genius,  a  great  and  acceptable  ruler,  and 
still  fail  to  see  the  consequences  to  future  times  of  the  legacy  he 
leaves  them  in  the  incomplete  institutions  of  his  own  time.  W  ell 
has  Bossuet  said,  that  "  human  wisdom  is  always  short  of  some- 
thing." 

Those  rapid,  and,  to  us,  wonderful  partitions  of  empires  and 
kingdoms  ;  those  loose  and  ill- defined  rules  of  succession  in  Ger- 
many, France,  England,  and  elsewThere  ;  productive  of  revolution 
at  the  death  of  every  sovereign,  and  often  during  every  reign, 
showed  the  Popes  that  hereditary  rights  ought  to  be  clear  and 
fixed,  and  confined  to  one  person  in  each  nation.  From  that 
period,  date  the  long  lines  of  the  Capetians  in  France,  the  Plan- 
tagenets  in  England ;  while  rights  of  a  similar  kind  are  intro- 
duced into  Spain  and  Portugal ;  likewise  into  the  various  states 
of  Northern  Germany,  or  Scandinavia ;  and  Southern  Italy,  or 
Norman  Sicily — the  rest  of  Italy  and  Germany  are  placed  on  a 
different  footing,  the  empire  and  the  popedom  being  both  elective. 

Such  was  the  grand  policy  of  the  Popes  inaugurated  by  Hilde- 
brand,  which  came  out  in  all  its  strong  features,  at  the  same 
time,  under  his  powerful  influence.  Such  was  the  policy  which 
insured  the  stability  of  Europe  for  upward  of  six  hundred  years  ; 
a  set  of  views  to  wThich  a  word  only  can  be  devoted  here,  but  on 
which  volumes  would  not  be  thrown  away. 

In  consequence  of  it,  for  six  hundred  years  dynasties  seldom 
changed  ;  the  territorial  limits  of  each  great  division  of  Europe 
remained,  on  the  whole,  settled ;  and  an  order  of  society  ensued, 
of  such  a  nature  that  any  father  of  a  family  might  rest  assured 
of  the  state  of  his  children  and  grandchildren  after  him. 

In  this  respect,  therefore,  as  in  many  others,  the  papacy  was 
the  key -stone  of  Christendom. 


366 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


But  as  soon  as  Protestantism  came  to  contest,  not  only  thd 
temporal,  but  even  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the  Popes  ;  when, 
taking  advantage  of  the  trouble  of  the  Church,  the  so-called 
Catholic  sovereigns,  while  pretending  to  render  all  honor  to  the 
spiritual  supremacy  of  the  sovereign  Pontiffs,  refused  to  acknowl- 
edge in  them  any  right  of  lifting  their  warning  voice,  and  calling 
on  the  powers  of  the  world  to  obey  the  great  and  unchangeable 
laws  of  religion  and  justice,  then  did  the  long-established  stabili- 
ty of  Europe  begin  to  give  wTay,  while  the  whole  continent  en- 
tered upon  its  long  era  of  revolution,  which  is  still  in  full  way, 
and,  as  yet,  is  far  from  having  produced  its  last  consequences. 

England,  the  most  guilty,  was  the  first  to  feel  the  effect  of  the 
shock.  The  Tudors  flattered  themselves  that,  by  throwing  aside 
what  they  called  the  yoke  of  Pome,  they  had  vastly  increased 
their  power,  and  so  they  did  for  the  moment,  while  the  dynasty 
that  succeeds  them  sees  rebellion  triumphant,  and  the  head  of  a 
king  fall  beneath  the  axe  of  an  executioner. 

She  is  said  to  have  benefited,  nevertheless,  by  her  great  revo- 
lution, and  by  the  subsequent  introduction  of  a  new  dynasty. 
She  has  certainly  chanted  a  loud  psean  of  triumph,  and  at  this 
moment  is  still  exultant  over  the  effects  of  her  modern  policy, 
from  the  momentary  success  of  the  new  ideas  she  has  dissemi- 
nated through  the  world,  and  above  all  from  that  immense 
spread  of  parliamentary  governments  which  have  sprung  into  ex- 
istence everywhere  under  her  guidance,  and  mainly  through  her 
agency. 

And  the  cause  of  her  triumph  was  that,  after  a  few  years  of 
commotion,  she  seemed  to  have  obtained  a  kind  of  stability 
which  was  a  sufficiently  good  copy  of  the  old  order  under  the 
Popes,  and  won  for  her  apparently  the  gratitude  of  mankind ; 
but  that  stability  is  altogether  illogical,  and  cannot  long  stand. 
There  is  an  old,  though  now  trite,  saying  to  the  effect  that  when 
you  "  sow  the  wind  you  must  reap  the  whirlwind,"  and  no  one 
can  fail  to  see  the  speedy  realization  of  the  truth  of  this  adage  on 
her  part.  Over  the  full  tide  of  her  prosperity  there  is  a  mighty, 
irresistible,  and  inevitable  storm  visibly  gathering.  At  last  she 
has  come  to  nearly  the  same  state  of  mental  anarchy  which  she 
has  been  so  powerful  to  spread  in  Europe.  After  reading  "  Lo- 
thair,"  the  work  of  one  of  her  great  statesmen,  all  intelligent 
readers  must  exclaim,  "  Babylon  !  how  hast  thou  fallen  ! "  With- 
in a  few  years,  possibly,  nothing  will  remain  of  her  former  great- 
ness but  a  few  shreds,  and  men  will  witness  another  of  those 
awful  examples  of  a  mighty  empire  falling  in  the  midst  of  the 
highest  seeming  prosperity. 

When  a  nation  has  no  longer  any  fixed  principle  to  go  by, 
when  the  minds  of  her  leaders  are  at  sea  on  all  great  religious 
and  moral  questions,  when  the  people  openly  deny  the  right  of 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


367 


the  few  to  rule,  when  a  fabric,  raised  altogether  on  aristocracy, 
finds  the  substratum  giving  way,  and  democratic  ideas  seated 
even  upon  the  summit  of  the  edifice,  there  must  be,  as  is  said, 
*  a  rattling  of  old  bones,"  and  a  shaking  of  the  skeleton  of  what 
was  a  body. 

How  long,  then,  will  the  mock  stability  established  by  the 
deep  wisdom  of  Ed  gland's  renowned  statesmen  have  stood  ?  A 
century  or  two  of  dazzling  material  prosperity  succeeded  bv 
long  ages  of  woe,  such  as  the  writer  of  the  "  Battle  of  Dorking,5' 
with  all  his  imagination,  could  not  find  power  enough  to  de- 
scribe ;  for  no  Prussian,  or  any  other  foreign  army,  will  bring 
that  catastrophe  about,  but  the  breath  of  popular  fury. 

But  our  purpose  is  not  to  utter  prophecies — rather  to  re- 
hearse facts  already  accomplished. 

England,  then,  was  the  first  to  feel  the  shock  of  the  earth- 
quake which  was  to  overthrow  the  old  stability  of  Europe.  It  is 
known  how  Germany  has  ever  since  been  a  scene  of  continual 
wars,  dynastic  changes,  and  territorial  confusion.  What  evils 
have  not  the  wars  of  the  present  century  brought  upon  her ! 
Yet,  owing  to  the  phlegmatic  disposition,  one  might  call  it  the 
stolidity  of  the  majority  of  Germans,  the  disturbances  have  been 
so  far  external,  and  the  lower  masses  of  society  have  scarcely 
been  agitated,  except  by  the  first  rude  explosion  of  Protestant- 
ism, and  the  sudden  patriotic  enthusiasm  of  young  plebeians,  in 
1814.  But  mark  the  suddenness  with  which,  in  1S48,  all  the 
thrones  of  Germany  fell  at  once  under  the  mere  breath  of  what 
is  called  "  the  people  ! "  It  is  almost  a  trite  thing  to  say  that, 
where  religion  no  longer  exists,  there  no  longer  is  securitv  or 
peace.  Impartial  travellers,  Americans  chiefly,  have  observed 
of  late  that,  in  certain  parts  of  France,  there  is,  in  truth,  very 
little  religious  feeling,  while  in  all  Protestant  Germany,  particu- 
larly in  that  belonging  to  Prussia,  there  is  none  at  all.  How 
long,  then,  is  the  "  new  Germanic  Empire,"  so  loudly  trumpeted 
at  Versailles,  and  afterward  so  gloriously  celebrated  at  Berlin, 
without  the  intervention  of  any  religion  whatever,  likely  to 
stand  %  How  long  ?  Can  it  exist  till  the  end  of  this  century  % 
He  would  be  a  bold  prophet  who  could  confidently  say,  "Yes." 

As  to  France,  formerly  the  steadiest  of  all  nations,  so  deeply 
attached  to  her  dynasty  of  eight  hundred  years,  although  some 
of  her  kings  were  little  worthy  true  affection ;  many  of  whose 
citizens  have  been  born  in  houses  a  thousand  years  old,  from 
families  whose  names  went  back  to  the  darkness  of  heroic  times ; 
which  was  once  so  retentive  of  her  old  memories,  living  in  her 
traditions,  her  former  deeds  of  glory,  even  in  the  monuments 
raised  in  honor  of  her  kings,  her  great  captains,  her  illustrious 
citizens  ;  which  was  chiefly  devoted  to  her  time-honored  religion, 
mindful  that  she  was  born  on  the  day  of  the  baptism  of  Clovis  ; 


368 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


that  she  grew  up  during  the  Crusades  ;  that  a  virgin  sent  by 
Heaven  saved  her  from  the  joke  of  the  stranger ;  that,  on  attain- 
ing her  full  maturity,  it  was  religion  which  chiefly  ennobled  her ; 
and  that  her  greatest  poets,  orators,  literary  men,  respected  and 
honored  religion  as  the  basis  of  the  state,  and,  by  their  immortal 
masterpieces,  threw  a  halo  around  Catholicism — France,  which 
still  retains  in  her  external  appearance  something  of  her  old 
steadiness  and  immutability,  so  that  to  the  eye  of  a  stranger, 
who  sees  her  for  the  first  time,  solidity  is  the  word  which  comes 
naturally  to  his  mind,  as  expressive  ot  every  thing  around  him, 
has  only  the  look  of  what  she  was  in  her  days  of  greatness,  and 
on  the  surface  of  the  earth  there  is  not  to-day  a  more  unsteady, 
shaky,  insecure  spot,  scarcely  worthy  of  being  chosen  by  a  no- 
mad Tartar  as  a  place  wherein  to  pitch  his  tent  for  the  night, 
and  hurry  off  at  the  first  appearance  of  the  rising  sun  on  the 
morrow.  Can  the  shifting  sands  of  Libya,  the  ever-shaking  vol- 
canic mountains  of  equatorial  America,  the  rapidly-forming  coral 
islands  of  the  southern  seas,  give  an  idea  of  that  fickleness,  con- 
stant agitation,  and  unceasing  clamor  for  change,  which  have 
made  France  a  by-word  in  our  days  ?  Who  of  her  children  can 
be  sure  that  the  house  he  is  building  for  himself  will  ever  be  the 
dwelling  of  his  son  ;  that  the  city  he  lives  in  to-day  will  to-mor- 
row acknowledge  him  as  a  member  of  its  community  ?  TYTio  can 
be  certain  that  the  constitution  of  the  whole  state  may  not  change 
in  the  night,  and  he  wake  the  next  day  to  find  himself  an  out- 
law and  a  fugitive  ? 

It  is  a  lamentable  fact  that  for  the  last  hundred  years  a  great 
nation  has  been  reduced  to  such  a  state  of  insecurity,  that  no 
one  dares  to  think  of  the  future,  though  all  have  repudiated  the 
past,  and  thus  every  thing  is  reduced  for  them  to  the  present  fleet- 
ing moment. 

And  what  is  likely  to  be  the  future  destiny  of  a  nation  of 
forty  million  souls,  when  their  present  state  is  such,  and  such 
the  uncertainty  of  their  dearest  interests  ?  They  are  unwilling 
to  quit  the  soil ;  for  they  have  lost  all  power  of  expansion  by 
sending  colonies  to  foreign  shores ;  it  is  difficult  for  them  to 
take  a  real  interest  in  their  own  soil,  for  the  great  moving  spring 
of  interest  is  broken  up  by  the  total  want  of  security.  May  God 
open  their  eyes  to  their  former  folly  ;  for  the  folly  was  all  of 
their  own  making !  They  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  thus 
thoroughly  imbued  with  this  revolutionary  spirit — the  first  revo- 
lution they  hailed  with  enthusiasm ;  when  they  saw  it  become 
stained  with  frightful  horrors,  they  paused  a  moment,  and  were 
on  the  point  of  acknowledging  their  error ;  but  scribblers  and  so- 

Ehists  came  to  show  them  that  it  failed  in  being  a  glorious  and 
appy  one  only  because  it  was  not  complete  ;  another  and  then 
another,  and  another  yet,  would  finish  the  work  and  make  them  a 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


369 


great  nation.  Thus  have  they  become  altogether  a  revolutionary 
people ;  and  they  must  abide  by  the  consequences,  unless  they 
come  at  last  to  change  their  mind. 

But  the  worst  has  not  been  said.  This  terrible  example,  in- 
stead of  proving  a  warning  to  nations,  has,  on  the  contrary,  drawn 
nearly  all  of  them  into  the  same  boiling  vortex.  England  and 
France  have  led  the  whole  European  world  captive :  people  ask 
for  a  government  different  to  the  one  they  have ;  revolution  is 
the  consequence,  and,  with  the  entry  of  the  revolutionary  spirit, 
good-by  to  all  stability  and  security.  Let  Italy  and  Spain  bear 
witness  if  this  is  not  so. 

And  the  great  phenomenon  of  the  age  is  the  collecting  of  all 
those  revolutionary  particles  into  one  compact  mass,  arranged 
and  preordained  by  some  master-spirits  of  evil,  who  would  be 
leaders  not  of  a  state  or  nation  only,  but  of  a  universal  republic 
embracing  first  Europe,  and  then  the  world.  So  we  hear  to-day 
of  the  Internationalists  receiving  in  their  "  congresses  "  deputies 
not  only  from  all  the  great  European  centres,  not  only  from  both 
ends  of  America,  which  is  now  Europeanized,  but  from  South 
Africa,  from  Australia,  New  Zealand,  from  countries  which  a  few 
years  back  were  still  in  quiet  possession  of  a  comparatively  few 
aborigines. 

To  come  back,  then,  to  the  point  from  which  we  started,  it  is 
in  this  revolutionary  spirit,  in  those  conspiracies  for  revolutions 
to  come,  that  some  Irishmen  set  their  hopes  for  the  regeneration 
of  their  country.  It  would  be  well  to  remind  them  of  the  say- 
ings of  our  Lord  :  "  Can  men  gather  grapes  from  thorns  ? "  "  By 
their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 

Let  the  Irish  who  are  truly  devoted  to  their  country  reflect 
well  on  the  kind  of  men  they  would  have  as  allies.  What  has 
Ireland  in  common  with  these  men  ?  If  they  know  Ireland  at 
all,  they  detest  her  because  of  her  Catholicism ;  and,  if  Ireland 
knows  them,  she  cannot  but  distrust  and  abominate  them. 

It  has  seemed  a  decree  of  kind  Providence  that  all  attempts 
at  rebellion  on  her  part  undertaken  with  the  hope  of  such  help, 
have  so  far  not  only  been  miserable  failures,  but  most  disgrace- 
fully miscarried  and  been  spent  in  air,  leaving  only  ridicule  and 
contempt  for  the  originators  of  and  partakers  in  the  plots. 

If  the  vast  and  unholy  scheme  which  is  certainly  being  or- 
ganized, and  which  is  spreading  its  fatal  branches  in  all  direc- 
tions, should  ever  succeed,  it  could  not  but  result  in  the  most 
frightful  despotism  ever  contemplated  by  men.  Ireland  in  such 
an  event  would  be  the  infinitesimal  part  of  a  chaotic  system 
worthy  of  Antichrist  for  head. 

But  we  are  confident  that  such  a  scheme  cannot  succeed  and 
come  to  be  realized,  unless  indeed  it  enter  for  a  short  period  into 
the  designs  of  an  avenging  God,  who  has  promised  not  to  de- 
24 


370 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


stroy  mankind  again  by  another  flood,  but  assured  us  by  St.  Peter 
that  he  will  purity  it  by  fire. 

As  a  mere  design  of  man,  intended  for  the  regeneration  of 
humanity  and  the  new  creation  of  an  abnormal  order  of  things, 
it  cannot  possibly  succeed,  because  it  is  opposed  to  the  nature  of 
men,  among  whom  as  a  whole  there  can  be  no  perfect  unity  of 
external  government  and  internal  organization,  owing  to  the  in- 
finite variety  of  which  we  spoke  at  the  beginning,  which  is  as 
strong  in  human  beings  as  elsewhere.  No  other  body  than  the 
Catholic  Church  can  hope  to  adapt  itself  to  all  human  races,  and 
govern  by  the  same  rules  all  the  children  of  Adam.  The  decree 
issued  of  old  from  the  mouth  of  God  is  final,  and  will  last  as  long 
as  the  earth  itself.    It  is  contained  in  Moses'  Canticle : 

"  When  the  Most  High  divided  the  nations,  when  he  separated 
the  sons  of  Adam,  he  appointed  the  bounds  of  each  people,  ac- 
cording to  the  number  of  the  children  of  Israel,"  or,  as  the  He- 
brew text  has  it,  "  He  fixed  the  limits  of  each  people."  On  this 
passage  Aben  Ezra  remarks  that  interpreters  understand  the  text 
as  alluding  to  the  dispersion  of  nations  (Genesis  xi.).  Those  in- 
terpreters were  clearly  right,  although  only  Jewish  rabbies. 

When  God  deprived  man  of  the  unity  of  language,  he  took 
away  at  the  same  time  the  possibility  of  unity  of  institutions  and 
government ;  and  it  will  be  as  hard  for  men  to  defeat  that  design 
of  Providence  as  for  Julian  the  apostate  to  rebuild  the  Temple 
of  Jerusalem,  of  which  our  Saviour  had  declared  that  there 
should  not  remain  "  a  stone  upon  a  stone. " 

But,  though  the  monstrous  scheme  cannot  ultimately  succeed, 
it  can  and  will  produce  untold  evils  to  human  society.  By 
alluring  workmen  and  other  people  of  the  lower  class,  it  draws 
into  the  intricate  folds  of  conspiracy,  dark  projects,  and  univer- 
sal disorder,  an  immense  array  of  human  beings,  whom  the  revo- 
lutionary spirit  had  not  yet,  or  at  least  had  scarcely,  touched  ;  it 
undermines  and  disturbs  society  in  its  lowest  depths  and  widest- 
spread  foundations,  since  the  lower  class  always  has  been  and 
still  is  the  most  numerous,  including  by  far  the  great  majority 
of  men.  It  consequently  renders  the  stability  of  order  more 
difficult,  if  not  absolutely  impossible ;  it  opens  up  a  new  era  of 
revolutions,  more  disastrous  than  any  yet  known ;  for,  as  has 
already  been  remarked,  and  it  should  be  well  borne  in  mind,  in 
order  that  the  whole  extent  of  the  evil  in  prospect  may  be  seen, 
so  far,  all  the  agitations  in  Europe,  all  the  convulsions  which 
have  rendered  our  age  so  unlike  any  previous  one,  and  produc- 
tive of  so  many  calamities,  private  as  well  as  public,  have  been 
almost  exclusively  confined  to  the  middle  classes,  and  should  be 
considered  only  as  a  reaction  of  the  simple  bourgeoisie  against 
the  aristocratic  class.  Those  agitations  and  convulsions  are  only 
the  necessary  consequence  of  the  secular  opposition,  existing  from 


DELUSIVE  nOPES. 


371 


the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  and  those  immediately  following, 
between  the  strictly  feudal  nobility,  which  arrogated  to  itself  all 
prerogatives  and  rights,  and  the  more  numerous  class  of  burgh- 
ers, set  on  the  lower  step  of  the  social  ladder.  These  latter 
wanted,  not  so  much  to  get  up  to  the  level  of  their  superiors,  as 
to  bring  them  down  to  their  own,  and  even  precipitate  them 
into  the  abyss  of  nothingness  below.  They  have  almost  suc- 
ceeded ;  and  the  prestige  of  noble  blood  has  passed  away,  per- 
haps forever,  in  spite  of  Vico's  well-known  theory.  But  the  now 
triumphant  burgher  in  his  turn  sees  the  dim  mass,  lost  in  the 
darkness  and  indistinctness  of  the  lowest  pool  of  humanity, 
rising  up  grim  and  horrible  out  of  the  abyss,  hungry  and  fierce 
and  not  to  be  pacified,  to  threaten  the  new-modelled  aristocracy 
of  money  with  a  worse  fate  than  that  it  inflicted  upon  the  old 
nobility. 

And,  to  render  the  prospect  more  appalling,  the  chief  means 
which  so  eminently  aided  the  bourgeoisie  to  take  their  position, 
namely,  the  wide-spread  influence  of  secret  societies,  whose 
workings  even  lately  have  astonished  the  world  by  the  facile  and 
apparently  inexplicable  revolutions  effected  in  a  few  days,  are 
now  in  the  full  possession  of  the  lower  classes,  who,  no  longer 
rude  and  unintelligent,  but  possessed  of  leaders  of  experience  and 
knowledge,  can  also  powerfully  work  those  mighty  engines  of 
destruction. 

In  the  presence  of  those  past,  present,  and  coming  revolu- 
tions, the  face  of  heaven  entirely  clouded,  the  presence  of  God 
absolutely  ignored,  his  rights  over  mankind  denied,  the  designs 
of  his  Providence  openly  derided,  and  man,  pretending  to  decide 
his  own  destiny  by  his  own  unaided  efforts,  scornfully  rejecting 
any  obligation  to  a  superior  power,  not  looking  on  high  for  assist- 
ance, but  taking  only  for  his  guide  his  pretended  wisdom,  his  un- 
bounded pride,  and  his  raging  passions  ;  such  is  now  our  world. 

Is  Ireland  to  launch  herself  on  that  surging  sea  of  wild  im- 
pulse,  in  whose  depths  lies  destruction  and  whose  waves  never 
kiss  a  peaceful  coast  ?  When  she  claimed  and  exercised  a  policy 
of  her  own,  she  wisely  persisted  in  not  mixing  herself  up  with 
the  troubles  of  Europe,  content  to  enjoy  happiness  in  her  own 
way,  on  her  ocean-bound  island,  she  thanked  God  that  no  portion 
of  her  little  territory  touched  any  part  of  the  Continent  of 
Europe,  stretching  out  vainly  toward  her  shores.  So  she  stood 
when,  under  God,  she  was  mistress  of  her  own  destiny.  If  ever 
she  thought  of  Europe,  it  was  only  to  send  her  missionaries  to 
its  help,  or  to  receive  foreign  youth  in  her  large  schools  which 
were  open  to  all,  where  wisdom  was  imparted  without  restriction 
and  without  price.  But  to  follow  the  lead  of  European  theorists 
and  vendors  of  so-called  wisdom  and  science,  to  originate  new 
schemes  of  pretended  knowledge,  or  place  herself  in  the  wake  of 


372 


DELUSIVE  HOPES. 


bold  adventurers  on  the  sea  of  modern  inventions,  she  was  ever 
steadfast  in  her  refusal. 

And  now  that  her  autonomy  is  almost  once  again  within  her 
grasp,  now  that  she  can  carve  out  a  destiny  of  her  own,  would 
she  hand  over  the  guidance  of  herself  to  men  who  know  nothing 
of  her,  who  have  only  heard  of  her  through  the  reports  of  her 
enemies,  and  who  will  scarcely  look  at  her  if  she  is  foolish 
enough  to  ask  to  be  admitted  within  their  ranks  ? 

Every  one  who  wishes  well  to  Ireland  ought  to  thank  God 
that  so  far  few  indeed,  if  any,  of  her  children  have  ever  joined 
in  the  plots  and  conspiracies  of  modern  times,  and  that  in  this 
last  scheme  just  referred  to,  not  one  of  them,  probably,  has  fully 
engaged  himself.  In  the  late  horrors  of  the  Paris  Commune^  no 
Irish  name  could  be  shown  to  have  been  implicated,  and,  when 
the  contrary  was  asserted,  a  simple  denial  was  sufficient  to  set 
the  question  at  rest.  Let  them  so  continue  to  refrain  from 
sullying  their  national  honor  by  following  the  lead  of  men  with 
whom  they  have  nothing  in  common. 

After  all,  the  great  thing  which  the  Irish  desire  is,  with  the 
entire  possession  of  their  rights,  to  enjoy  that  peace  and  security 
in  their  own  island,  which  they  relish  so  keenly  when  they  find 
it  on  foreign  shores.  But  no  peace  or  security  is  possible  with 
the  attempt  to  subvert  all  human  society  by  wild  and  imprac- 
ticable theories,  in  which  human  and  divine  laws  are  alike  set 
at  naught.  Further  words  are  unnecessary  on  this  subject,  as 
the  simple  good  sense  and  deep  religious  feeling  of  the  Irish  will 
easily  preserve  them  from  yielding  to  such  temptation. 

Yet,  a  last  consideration  seems  worthy  of  note.  When,  later 
on,  we  present  our  views,  and  explain  by  what  means  we  con- 
sider that  the  happiness  of  the  Irish  nation  may  be  secured,  and 
its  mission  fulfilled,  a  more  fitting  opportunity  will  be  presented 
of  speaking  of  the  ways  by  which  Providence  has  already  led 
them  through  former  difficulties,  and  the  consideration  of  those 
holy  designs  and  past  favors  may  enable  us  better  to  understand 
what  may  be  hoped  and  attempted  in  the  future. 

Here  it  is  enough  to  observe  that,  in  whatever  progress  the 
Irish  have  made  of  late  in  obtaining  a  certain  amount  of  their 
rights,  insurrection,  revolution,  plots,  and  the  working  of  secret 
societies  condemned  by  the  Church,  have  absolutely  gone  for 
nothing,  and  the  little  of  it  all,  in  which  Irishmen  have  indulged, 
really  formed  one  of  the  main  obstacles  to  the  enjoyment  of  what 
they  had  already  obtained,  and  to  the  securing,  of  a  greater 
amount  for  the  future. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  revolutions  abroad  and  dangers  at 
home  have  been  the  greatest  inducements  to  England  to  relax 
her  grasp  and  change  her  tyrannical  policy  toward  Ireland.  The 
success  of  the  revolt  of  the  North  American  colonies  was  the 


DELUSIVE  IIOPES. 


373 


main  cause  of  the  volunteer  movement  of  1782,  and  of  the  con- 
cessions then  temporarily  granted.  The  fearful  upheaval  of  rev- 
olutionary France,  which  tilled  the  English  heart  with  a  whole- 
some dread,  was  also  a  great  means  of  obtaining  for  Ireland  the 
concession  of  being  no  longer  treated  as  though  it  were  a  lair  of 
wild  beasts  or  a  nest  of  outlaws.  The  act  of  Catholic  Eman- 
cipation in  1829  was  certainly  granted  in  view  of  immediate 
revolutions  ready  to  burst  forth,  one  of  which  did  explode  in 
France  in  the  year  following.  But,  in  all  those  outbursts  of 
popular  fury,  Ireland  never  joined ;  and  if  she  found  in  them 
new  ground  for  hope,  if  she  awaited  anxiously  the  anticipated 
result  turning  in  her  favor,  she  never  took  any  active  part  what- 
ever in  them.  She  only  relied  on  God,  who  always  knows  how 
to  draw  good  from  evil ;  she,  however,  profited  by  them,  and  saw 
her  shackles  fall  off  of  themselves,  and  herself  brought  back, 
step  by  step,  to  liberty. 

But  so  soon  as  any  body  of  Irishmen  entered  into  a  scheme 
of  a  similar  nature,  imitating  the  secret  plottings  and  deeds  of 
European  revolutionists,  Ireland  never  gained  a  single  inch  of 
ground,  nor  reaped  the  slightest  advantage  from  such  attempts. 
On  the  contrary,  ridicule,  contempt,  increase  of  burdens,  penal- 
ties, and  harsh  treatment,  were  the  only  result  which  ever  came 
from  them,  and,  worst  of  all,  no  one  pitied  the  victims  of  all 
those  foolish  enterprises.  There  is  no  need  of  entering  here  into 
details.  The  first  of  those  attempts  failed  long  ago ;  the  last  is 
still  on  record,  and  cannot  be  yet  said  to  belong  to  past  history. 


CHAPTEK  XIV. 


RESURRECTION.  EMIGRATION. 

To  the  eye  of  a  keen  beholder,  Ireland  to-day  presents  the 
appearance  of  a  nation  entering  upon  a  new  career.  She  is 
emerging  from  a  long  darkness,  and  opening  again  to  the  free 
light  of  heaven.  "Whoever  compares  her  present  position  with 
that  she  occupied  a  century  ago,  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  won- 
der no  less  at  the  change  in  her  than  at  the  agencies  which  brought 
that  change  about.  And  when  to  this  is  added  the  further  re- 
flection that  she  is  still  young,  though  sprung  from  so  old  an 
origin — young  in  feeling,  in  buoyancy,  in  aspirations,  in  purity 
and  simplicity — the  conclusion  forces  itself  upon  the  mind  that  a 
high  destiny  is  in  store  for  her,  and  that  God  proposes  a  long  era 
of  prosperity  and  active  life  to  an  ancient  nation  which  is  only 
now  beginning  to  live. 

In  such  cases,  whether  it  be  a  people  or  an  individual,  which 
is  entering  upon  its  life,  crowds  of  advisers  are  ever  to  be  found 
ready  to  display  their  wisdom  and  lay  down  the  plans  whose 
adoption  will  infallibly  bring  prosperity  and  happiness  to  the  in- 
dividual or  people  in  question. 

Ireland,  to-day,  suffers  from  no  lack  of  wise  counsellors  and 
ardent  well-wishers.  Unfortunately,  their  various  projects  do 
not  always  harmonize ;  indeed,  they  are  sometimes  contradictory, 
and,  as  their  number  is  by  no  means  small,  the  only  difficulty  is 
where  to  choose  which  road  the  nation  should  take  in  order  to 
march  in  the  right  direction. 

In  entering  upon  this  portion  of  our  work,  where  we  have  to 
deal  with  actual  questions  of  the  day,  and  if  not  to  draw  the 
horoscope  of  the  future,  at  least  to  give  utterance  to  our  ideas  for 
the  promotion  of  the  welfare  of  the  nation,  we  shall  appear  to 
come  under  the  same  catalogue  of  advisers,  fully  persuaded,  with 
the  rest,  that  our  advice  is  the  right,  our  voice  the  only  one 
worthy  of  attention. 

Our  purpose  is  far  humbler  ;  our  reflections  take  another 
shape ;  we  merely  say : 


EMIGRATION. 


375 


During  the  last  hundred  years,  Ireland  has  changed  wonder- 
fully for  the  better ;  and  although  the  old  wounds  are  not  yet  quite 
healed  up,  though  they  still  smart,  though  she  is  still  poor  and 
disconsolate,  and  her  trials  and  afflictions  far  from  being  ended ; 
nevertheless,  though  sorely  tried,  Providence  has  been  kind  to 
her.  Many  of  her  rights  have  been  restored,  and  she  is  no  longer 
the  slave  of  hard  task-masters.  When  she  now  speaks,  her  voice 
is  no  longer  met  by  gibe  and  sneer,  but  with  a  kind  of  awe  akin 
to  respect,  her  enemies  seeming  to  feel  instinctively  that  it  is  the 
voice  of  a  nation  which  no  longer  may  be  safely  despised. 

This  fact  being  indisputable,  the  conviction  forces  itself  upon 
us  that  her  improved  condition  is  mainly,  perhaps  solely,  due  to 
Providence ;  and  that  the  career  upon  which  she  has  entered, 
and  which  she  is  now  pursuing  with  a  clear  determination  of  her 
own,  has  been  marked  out,  designed,  and  already  partially  run, 
under  the  guidance  of  that  God  for  whom  alone  she  has  suffered, 
and  who  never  fails  in  his  own  good  time  to  dry  up  the  tears 
shed  for  his  sake,  and  crown  his  martyrs  with  victory. 

Our  task  is  merely  to  examine  the  progress  made,  the  manner 
of  its  making,  the  direction  toward  which  it  tends,  with  the  aim, 
if  possible,  of  adding  to  its  speed.  We  have  no  new  plan  to 
offer,  no  gratuitous  advice  to  give.  The  plan  is  already  sketched 
out — God  has  sketched  it ;  and  our  only  aim  is  to  see  how  man 
may  cooperate  with  designs  far  higher  than  any  proposed  by 
human  wisdom. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  us,  standing  on  the  verge  of  this 
new  region,  opening  out  dimly  but  gloriously  before  our  eyes,  is 
one  great  fact  which  is  plain  to  all ;  which  is  greater  than  all 
England's  concessions  to  Ireland,  more  fruitful  of  happy  conse- 
quences, not  alone  to  the  latter  country  itself,  but  to  the  world 
at  large ;  a  fact  which  is  the  strongest  proof  of  the  vitality  of  the 
Irish  race,  which  now  begins  to  win  for  it  respect  by  bringing 
forth  its  real  strength,  a  strength  to  astonish  the  world ;  which 
began  feebly  when  the  evils  of  the  country  were  at  their  height, 
but  has  gone  on  constantly  increasing  until  it  has  now  grown  to 
extraordinary  proportions  ;  and  which  instead  of,  as  their  enemies 
fondly  supposed,  wresting  Ireland  from  the  Irish,  has  made  their 
claim  to  the  native  soil  securer  than  ever,  by  spreading  strong 
supporters  of  their  rights  through  the  world.  This  great  fact  ie 
emigration. 

At  this  moment,  Irishmen  are  scattered  abroad  over  the  earth. 
In  many  regions  they  have  numbers,  and  form  compact  bodies. 
Wherever  this  occurs,  they  acquire  a  real  power  in  the  land 
which  they  have  made  their  new  home.  That  power  is  certainly 
intended  by  Almighty  God  to  be  used  wisely,  prudently,  but  ac- 
tively and  energetically,  not  only  for  the  good  of  those  who  have 
been  thus  transplanted  in  a  new  soil,  but  also  for  the  good  of  the 


376 


EMIGRATION. 


mother-country  which  they  cannot,  if  tiiey  would,  forget.  How 
can  they  utilize  for  such  a  purpose  the  power  so  recently  acquired, 
the  wealth,  the  influence,  the  consideration  they  enjoy,  in  their 
new  country  ?  How  may  such  a  course  benefit  the  land  of  their 
nativity  as  of  their  origin  ?  These  are  important  questions ; 
they  are  not  airy  theories,  but  rise  up  clearly  from  a  standing 
and  stupendous  fact.  The  turning  their  power  of  expansion  to 
its  right  use,  the  reproduction  with  Christian  aim  of  that  old 
power  of  expansion  peculiar  to  the  Celtic  race  three  thousand 
years  ago,  is  what  we  call  the  first  true  issue  of  the  Irish  ques- 
tion : — Emigration  and  its  Possible  Effects. 

In  order  to  judge  with  proper  understanding  of  the  prospec- 
tive effects  of  Irish  emigration,  it  is  fitting  to  study  the  fact  in 
all  its  bearings  ;  to  examine  the  origin  and  various  phases  of  the 
mighty  movement,  the  religious  direction  it  has  invariably  taken, 
the  immediate  good  it  has  produced,  and  the  special  considera- 
tion of  the  vast  proportions  which  it  has  finally  assumed.  The 
task  may  be  a  long  one  ;  but  it  is  certainly  important  and  inter- 
esting ;  and  it  is  only  after  the  details  of  it  have  been  thoroughly 
sifted  that  one  may  be  in  a  position  to  judge  rightly  of  the  aid  it 
has  already  furnished,  and  which  it  is  destined  to  furnish  in  a 
still  greater  degree,  to  the  uprising  of  the  nation. 

The  movement  originated  with  the  Information.  It  began 
with  the  flight  of  a  few  of  the  nobility  in  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.  ;  their  number  was  increased  under  Elizabeth,  and  grew 
to  larger  proportions  still  under  James  L  ;  but  a  far  greater 
number,  sufficient  to  make  a  very  sensible  diminution  in  the 
population  of  the  country,  was  doomed  to  exile  by  Cromwell 
and  the  Long  Parliament.  It  then  became  a  compulsory  banish- 
ment. 

The  next  following  movement  on  a  large  scale  occurred  after 
the  surrender  of  Kilkenny,  when  the  Irish  commanders,  Colonel 
Fitzpatrick,  Clanricard,  and  others,  could  obtain  no  better  terms 
than  emigration  to  any  foreign  country  then  at  peace  with  Eng- 
land. The  Irish  troops  were  eagerly  caught  up  by  the  various 
European  monarchs,  so  highly  were  their  services  esteemed.  The 
number  that  thus  left  their  native  land,  many  of  them  never  to 
return,  amounted,  according  to  well-informed  writers,  to  forty 
thousand  men,  of  noble  blood  most  of  them,  many  of  the  first 
nobility  of  the  land,  and  almost  all  children  of  the  old  race.  The 
details  of  this  first  exodus  are  to  be  found  in  the  pages  of  many 
modern  authors,  particularly  in  Mr.  Prendergast's  "  Cromwellian 
Settlement." 

The  example  thus  given  was  followed  on  many  occasions. 
The  Treaty  of  Limerick,  October  3,  1691,  gave  the  garrison 
under  Saarsfield  liberty  to  join  the  army  of  King  William  or  enter 
the  service  of  France.    Mr.  A.  M.  O' Sullivan  has  given  a  spirited 


EMIGRATION. 


377 


sketch  of  the  making  of  their  choice  by  the  heroic  garrison  as  it 
defiled  out  of  the  city  : 

"  On  the  morning  of  the  5th  of  October  the  Irish  regiments 
were  to  make  their  choice  between  exile  for  life  or  service  in  the 
armies  of  their  conqueror.  At  each  end  of  a  gently-rising 
ground  beyond  the  suburbs  were  planted  on  one  side  the  royal 
standard  of  France,  and  on  the  other  that  of  England.  It  was 
agreed  that  the  regiments,  as  they  marched  out  with  all  the 
honors  of  war,  drums  beating,  colors  flying,  and  matches  lighted, 
should,  on  reaching  the  spot,  wheel  to  the  left  or  to  the  right, 
beneath  that  flag  under  which  they  elected  to  serve.  At  the 
head  of  the  Irish  marched  the  Foot  Guards,  the  finest  regiment 
in  the  service,  fourteen  hundred  strong.  All  eyes  were  fixed  on 
this  splendid  body  of  men.  On  they  came,  amid  breathless 
silence  and  acute  suspense  ;  for  well  both  the  English  and  Irish 
generals  knew  that  the  choice  of  the  first  regiment  would  power- 
fully influence  all  the  rest.  The  Guards  marched  up  to  the 
critical  spot,  and  in  a  body  wheeled  to  the  colors  of  France, 
barely  seven  men  turning  to  the  English  side  !  Ginckle,  we  are 
told,  was  greatly  agitated  as  he  witnessed  the  proceeding.  The 
next  regiment,  however  (Lord  Iveagh's),  marched  as  unanimously 
to  the  Williamite  banner,  as  did  also  portions  of  two  others. 
But  the  bulk  of  the  Irish  army  defiled  under  the  fleur-de-lys  of 
King  Louis,  only  one  thousand  and  forty-six,  out  of  nearly  four- 
teen thousand  men,  preferring  the  service  of  England." 

From  that  time  out  a  large  number  of  the  Irish  nobility  and 
gentry  continued  to  enlist  under  French,  Spanish,  or  Austrian 
colors  ;  and  the  several  Irish  brigades  became  celebrated  all  over 
Europe  until  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  said  by 
Vdbbe  McGeohegan  that  six  hundred  thousand  Irishmen  perished 
in  the  armies  of  France  alone.  The  abbe  is  generally  very  ac- 
curate, and  from  his  long  residence  in  France  had  every  means 
at  his  disposal  of  arriving  at  the  truth.  Some  pretend  that 
double  the  number  enlisted  in  foreign  service.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  in  all  a  million  men  left  the  island  to  take  service 
under  the  banners  of  Catholic  sovereigns,  and  it  is  needless  to 
dwell  on  the  bravery  and  devotion  of  those  men  whom  the  per- 
secution of  an  unwise  and  cruel  Protestant  government  drove 
out  of  Ireland  during  the  eighteenth  century — it  is  needless  to 
dwell  upon  it,  for  the  record  is  known  to  the  world. 

Without  following  the  fortunes  of  the  Irish  brigades,  the 
history  of  one  of  which,  that  in  the  service  of  France,  has  been 
given  us  in  the  very  interesting  and  valuable  narrative  of  John 
C.  O'Callaghan — its  various  fortunes  and  final  dissolution  at 
the  breaking  out  of  the  French  republic,  when  the  English  Gov- 
ernment was  glad  to  receive  back  the  scattered  remnants  of  it — 
the  question  which  bears  most  on  our  present  subject  is  :  What 


378 


EMIGRATION. 


was  the  occupation  of  those  Irishmen  on  the  Continent  when  not 
actually  engaged  in  war  ?    What  service  did  their  voluntary  or 
compulsory  exile  do  their  native  country  ?    Was  that  long  emi- 
gration of  a  century  productive  of  something  out  of  which  Provi 
dence  may  have  drawn  good  ? 

The  first  departure  of  a  few  under  Hugh  O'Neill  and  Hugh 
O'Donnell  had  already  spread  the  name  of  Ireland  through 
Spain,  Italy,  and  Belgium.  The  reports  of  the  numerous  Eng- 
lish spies,  employed  to  dog  their  steps  and  watch  their  move- 
ments, reports  some  of  which  have  been  finally  brought  to  light, 
conclusively  prove  that  most  of  the  exiles  held  honorable  posi- 
tions in  Spain  and  Portugal,  at  Yalladolid  and  Lisbon,  where  the 
O'Sullivans  and  O'Driscolls  lived  ;  at  the  very  court  of  Spain,  or 
in  the  Spanish  navy,  like  the  Bourkes  and  the  Cavanaghs. 

In  Flanders,  under  the  Austrian  archdukes,  were  stationed 
the  McShanes,  on  the  Groyne ;  the  Daniells  at  Antwerp ;  the 
posterity  of  the  earls  themselves  with  that  of  their  former  reti- 
nue. All  held  rank  in  the  Austrian  army,  and  even  in  times  of 
peace  were  occupied  in  thinking  of  possible  entanglements  where- 
by they  might  serve  their  country,  while  they  made  the  Irish 
name  honored  and  respected  all  over  that  rich  land.  In  Italy,  at 
Naples,  Leghorn,  Florence,  and  Home,  in  the  great  centres  of 
the  peninsula,  the  same  thing  was  taking  place,  and  there,  at 
least,  the  calumnies,  everywhere  so  industriously  circulated  about 
Ireland,  could  not  penetrate,  or,  if  they  did,  only  to  be  received 
with  scorn. 

But,  when  the  next  emigration,  at  the  end  of  the  Cromwell- 
ian  and  Williamite  wars,  landed  forty  thousand  soldiers,  and 
twelve  thousand  more  a  few  years  afterward,  on  the  European 
Continent,  these  armed  men  proved  to  the  nations,  by  their 
bravery,  their  deep  attachment  to  their  religion,  their  perfect 
honor  and  generosity,  that  the  people  from  which  a  persecuting 
power  had  driven  them  forth  could  not  be  composed  of  the 
outlaws  and  blood-thirsty  cutthroats  which  the  reports  of  their 
enemies  would  make  them.  How  striking  and  permanent  must 
have  been  the  effect  produced  on  impartial  minds  by  the  con- 
trast between  the  aspect  of  the  reality  and  the  base  fabrications 
of  skilfully-scattered  rumor ! 

And  be  it  borne  in  mind  that  those  men  founded  families 
in  the  countries  where  they  settled,  as  well  as  those  who  con- 
tinued to  flock  thither  during  the  whole  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. They  carried  about  with  them,  in  their  very  persons  even, 
the  history  of  Ireland's  wrongs  ;  and  the  mere  sight  of  them  was 
enough  to  interest  all  with  whom  they  came  in  contact  in  favor  of 
their  country.  Hence  the  esteem  and  sympathy  which  Ireland  and 
her  people  have  always  met  with  in  France,  where  the  calumnies 
and  ridicule  lavished  on  them  could  never  find  an  entrance. 


EMIGRATION". 


379 


It  would  be  a  great  error  to  imagine  that  they  were  to 
be  found  only  in  the  camp  or  in  the  garrisons  of  cities.  They 
m&  le  themselves  a  home  in  their  new  country,  and  their  chil- 
dren entered  upon  all  the  walks  of  life  opened  up  to  the  citi- 
zens of  the  country  in  which  they  resided.  Thus,  at  least,  the 
name  of  Ireland  did  not  die  out  altogether  during  that  age 
of  gloom,  when  their  native  isle  was  only  the  prison  of  the 
race,  where  it  was  chained  down  in  abject  misery,  out  of  the 
sight  of  the  world,  the  life  of  it  stifled  out  in  the  deep  dungeon 
of  oblivion. 

In  all  honorable  professions  they  became  distinguished — in 
the  Church  and  in  trade,  as  in  the  army.  Thus,  speaking  only  of 
France,  an  Irishman — Edgeworth — was  chosen  by  Louis  XVI. 
to  prepare  him  for  death  and  stand  by  him  during  his  last  ordeal 
of  ignominy  ;  another — Lally  Tollendal — would  have  wrested 
India  from  England,  if  his  ardent  temperament  had  not  brought 
him  enemies  where  he  ought  to  have  met  with  friends  ;  another 
yet — "Walsh — during  the  American  War,  employed  the  wealth 
acquired  by  trade,  in  sending  cruisers  against  the  English  to 
American  waters. 

It  would  take  long  pages  to  record  what  those  noble  exiles 
accomplished  for  the  good  of  their  country  and  religion,  quite 
apart  from  the  heroism  they  displayed  on  battle-fields,  and  their 
fidelity  to  principle  during  times  of  peace.  Their  very  presence 
in  foreign  countries  was,  perhaps,  the  best  protest  against  the 
enslavement  of  their  own.  They  showed  by  their  bearing  that 
they  owed  no  allegiance  to  England,  and  that  brute  force  could 
never  establish  right.  By  identifying  themselves  with  the 
nations  which  offered  them  hospitality  and  a  new  right  of  citi- 
zenship, they  proved  to  the  world  that  their  native  isle  could  be 
governed  by  native  citizens.  Their  honorable  conduct  and  suc- 
cessful activity  in  every  pursuit  of  life  showed  that,  as  they  were 
capable  of  governing  themselves,  so  likewise  could  they  claim 
self-government  for  their  country. 

The  moral  condition  of  France  during  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  the  depths  of  corruption  into  which  the  higher  class  sank  in 
so  short  a  time,  are  known  to  all.  To  the  honor  of  the  Irish  nobil- 
ity and  gentry  then  in  France,  not  a  single  Irish  name  is  to  be  met 
with  in  that  long  list  of  noble  names  which  have  disgraced  that 
page  of  French  history.  Not  in  the  luxurious  bowers  and  pal- 
aces of  Louis  XV.  were  they  to  be  found,  but  on  the  battle-fields 
of  Dettingen  and  Fontenoy.  It  was  a  Scotchman — Law — who 
infected  the  higher  circles  of  the  natives  with  the  rage  for  specu- 
lation, and  the  folly  of  gambling  in  paper.  It  was  an  Italian — 
Cagliostro — who  traded  on  the  superstitious  credulity  of  men 
who  had  lost  their  faith.  It  was  an  Englishman — Lord  Derwent- 
water — and  another  Scotchman — Ramsay — who,  by  the  introduc- 


330 


EMIGRATION. 


tion  of  the  first  Masonic  Lodge  into  France,  opened  the  flood- 
gates of  future  revolutions. 

Among  those  of  foreign  birth,  no  Irishman  was  found  in 
France  to  contribute  to  the  corruption  of  the  nation,  and  give 
his  aid  to  set  agoing  that  long  era  of  woe  not  yet  ended. 

And  needless  is  it  to  add  that  never  is  one  of  them  mentioned, 
among  those  who  were  so  active  in  propagating  that  broad  in- 
fidelity peculiar  to  that  age.  If  a  few  of  them  shared  to  some 
extent  in  the  general  delusion,  and  took  part  with  the  vast  mul- 
titude in  the  insane  derision,  then  so  fashionable,  of  every  thing 
holy,  their  number  was  small  indeed,  and  none  of  them  acquired 
in  that  peculiar  line  the  celebrity  which  crowned  so  many  others 
— the  Grimms,  the  Gallianis,  and  later  on  the  Paines,  the  Cloots, 
and  other  foreigners. 

As  a  body,  the  Irish  remained  faithful  to  the  Church  of  their 
fathers,  honoring  her  by  their  conduct,  and  their  respectful  de- 
meanor toward  holy  names  and  holy  things.  Eventually  they, 
in  common  with  all  Frenchmen,  had  to  share  in  the  misfortunes 
brought  on  by  the  subversion  of  all  the  former  guiding  princi- 
ples ;  but,  though  sharing  in  the  punishment,  they  took  no  part 
in  the  great  causes  which  called  it  down. 

These  few  words  will  suffice  for  the  emigration  of  the  Irish 
nobility,  and  its  effects  on  foreign  countries,  as  well  as  Ireland  it- 
self. 

But  another  class  of  noblemen  had  emigrated  to  the  Continent 
side  by  side  with  those  of  whom  we  have  just  spoken ;  namely, 
bishops,  priests,  monks,  and  learned  men.  England  would  not 
suffer  the  Catholic  clergy  in  Ireland  ;  she  was  particularly  care- 
ful not  to  allow  Irish  youth  the  benefit  of  any  but  a  Protestant 
education.  Irish  clergymen  were  compelled  to  fly  and  open 
houses  of  study  abroad.  Their  various  colleges  in  Spain,  France, 
Belgium,  and  Italy,  are  well  known  ;  they  have  already  been  re- 
ferred to,  and  it  is  not  necessary  to  enlarge  on  the  subject.  But, 
though  mention  has  been  made  of  the  renown  thus  acquired  by 
Irishmen  then  residing  on  the  Continent,  it  is  fitting  to  speak  of 
them  again  in  their  character  of  emigrants. 

They  took  upon  themselves  the  noble  task  of  making  the 
literature  and  the  history  of  their  nation  known  to  all  people ; 
and  in  so  doing  they  have  preserved  a  rich  literature  which  must 
otherwise  have  perished. 

What  was  their  situation  on  the  Continent  ?  They  had  been 
driven  by  persecution  from  their  country,  sometimes  in  troops 
of  exiles  to  be  cast  on  some  remote  shore ;  sometimes  escaping 
singly  and  in  disguise,  they  went  out  alone  to  end  their  lives 
under  a  foreign  sky.  Behind  them  they  left  the  desolate  island ; 
their  friends  bowed  down  in  misery,  their  enemies  triumphant 
and  in  full  power.    The  convents,  where  they  had  spent  their 


EMIGRATION. 


381 


happiest  days,  were  either  demolished  or  turned  to  vile  uses ; 
their  churches  desecrated ;  heresy  ruling  the  land,  truth  com- 
pelled to  be  silent.  All  the  harrowing  details  given  by  the 
"  Prophet  of  Lamentations  "  might  be  applied  to  their  beloved 
country. 

True,  they  could  find  peace  and  rest  among  those  who 
offered  them  their  hospitality  ;  at  least,  the  worship  of  God 
would  be  free  and  untrammelled  there.  But  it  was  not  the  place 
of  their  birth,  where  they  had  received  their  first  education  ;  it 
was  not  the  mission  intrusted  to  them  when  they  consecrated 
their  lives  to  God.  They  would  hear  another  language,  see 
around  them  different  manners,  begin  life  anew,  perhaps,  in  their 
old  age.  What  a  contrast  to  their  former  hopes  !  What  a  sad 
ending  to  the  closing  days  of  their  life  ! 

Nevertheless,  they  might  be  of  use  to  their  countrymen.  It 
was  not  for  them  now  to  convert  Europe,  and  preach  Christianity 
to  barbarous  tribes,  as  did  their  ancestors  of  old.  The  world 
which  received  them  was  languishing  with  excess  of  refined  civil- 
ization ;  corruption  had  entered  in,  and  was  fast  destroying  it  ; 
and  they  could  scarcely  hope  to  hold  it  back  from  its  downward 
career.  But,  at  least,  they  might  open  houses  for  the  reception 
of  the  youth  of  their  own  country,  where  they  should  receive  an 
education  according  to  the  teachings  of  the  true  Church,  which 
was  denied  them  at  home.  So  they  went  to  Salamanca,  to  Yal- 
ladolid,  to  Paris,  Louvain,  Douai,  Pheims,  Pome,  wherever  there 
was  hope  or  possibility  of  directing  Irish  youth  in  the  ways  of 
true  piety  and  learning. 

The  labors  to  which  they  devoted  themselves,  though  un- 
known to  posterity,  were  of  great  utility  at  the  time.  They  saw 
the  youth  they  educated  grow  up  under  their  care  ;  when  their 
studies  were  concluded,  they  sent  them  to  labor  in  the  ministry 
among  their  countrymen  ;  they  heard  of  them  from  time  to  time 
— of  their  arduous  life,  the  dangers  they  braved,  the  many  per- 
secutions they  underwent,  their  imprisonment  when  captured, 
their  conviction,  torture  often,  and  death  by  martyrdom.  And 
thus,  through  the  exertions  of  those  emigrant  monks  and  priests, 
the  true  Gospel  was  preached  in  Ireland,  and  the  faith  of  the 
people  kept  alive  and  strong. 

A  few  of  them  chose  another  path,  and  consecrated  the  re- 
mainder of  their  days  to  literary  labors,  which  have  shed  down 
on  their  persecuted  country  a  halo  of  immortal  glory. 

Some  Franciscan  friars  (two  of  them  the  brothers  O' Clear v) 
had  already  begun  this  work  in  the  island  itself,  when  driven 
from  their  quiet  homes  to  take  refuge  in  the  obscure  "  convents," 
that  is,  out-of-the-way  farm-houses  mentioned  before,  where  they 
were  received  and  hidden  away  from  the  world.  The  literature 
of  Ireland  was  fast  perishing ;  the  rage  of  their  enemies  being 


382 


EMIGRATION. 


as  violently  directed  against  their  books  as  against  their  houses 
and  churches.  Precious  manuscripts  were  every  day  given  to 
the  flames  and  wantonly  destroyed,  seemingly  for  the  mere  pleas- 
ure of  destruction.  A  very  few  years  would  have  sufficed  to 
render  the  former  history  of  the  country  a  perfect  blank.  In  no 
spot  of  the  same  size  on  earth  had  so  many  interesting  books 
ever  been  written  and  treasured  up  ;  but  before  long  there  would 
remain  no  friars  on  the  island  to  preserve  them,  no  library  to 
contain  them,  no  one  to  care  for  them  in  the  least.  The  brothers 
O'Cleary  saw  this  with  dismay ;  and  they,  with  two  companions, 
became  known  as  the  "  Four  Masters."  They  interested  in 
their  work  the  faithful  Irish  who  still  retained  possession  of  a 
farm,  or  a  cabin  with  a  few  acres  of  ground  attached ;  the  men, 
and  women  even,  were  to  search  the  country  round  for  every 
volume  concealed  or  preserved,  for  every  parchment  and  relic, 
for  vellum  manuscripts,  even  a  stray  solitary  page,  did  one  re- 
main alone.  The  annals  of  Ireland  were  thus  saved  by  the 
literary  patriotism  of  poor  and  unknown  peasants.  All  that  re- 
mains of  Irish  lore  was  collected  together  in  the  rural  convent 
of  the  O'Cleary s,  and  an  ardent  flame  was  enkindled  which 
lasted  the  whole  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

To  this  initiative  must  be  referred  the  subsequent  labors  of 
Ward,  Colgan,  Lynch,  and  others  ;  herculean  labors  truly,  which 
have  enabled  antiquarians  of  our  days  to  resume  the  thread,  60 
near  being  snapped,  of  that  long  and  tangled  web  of  history 
wherein  is  woven  all  that  can  interest  the  patriot  and  the  Chris- 
tian of  the  island. 

Knowing  the  position  in  which  the  writers  found  themselves, 
it  is  astonishing  to  see  what  they  wrote.  It  was  not  a  work  of 
fancy  to  which  their  pens  were  devoted.  A  strong,  feeling  heart 
and  an  active  imagination  were  certainly  theirs  ;  but  of  little 
service  could  either  prove  to  them  in  the  ungrateful  task  of  col- 
lecting manuscripts,  classifying,  reading  them  through,  ascertain- 
ing their  age  and  authenticity,  and  finally  using  them  for  the  pur- 
pose of  preserving  the  annals  and  hagiography  of  the  nation. 

The  large  libraries  they  found  in  the  various  cities  which  re- 
ceived them  could  be  of  little  use  to  them.  They  had  first  to 
collect  their  own  libraries,  to  summon  their  authorities  from  dis- 
tant lands ;  many  books  were  to  be  procured  from  Ireland  itself. 
With  what  precautions !  It  was  real,  (though  lawful)  smuggling ; 
for  the  export  of  Irish  books  was  not  only  under  tariff,  but  strict- 
ly prohibited  ;  the  mere  sight  of  them  was  more  hateful  to  a 
British  custom-house  officer  of  those  days  than  the  sight  of  a 
crucifix  to  a  Japanese  official  of  Nagasaki.  It  would  be  inter- 
esting to  know  the  various  stratagems  devised  to  conceal  them, 
carry  them  away,  and  convey  them  triumphantly  to  Louvain, 
Paris,  or  Rome. 


EMIGRATION. 


383 


But  Ireland  was  not  the  only  repository  of  Irish  books. 
Many  letters,  official  documents,  copies  of  old  MSS.,  interesting 
relics  of  antiquity,  had  been  gathered  ages  before  and  during  all 
the  intervening  time,  in  convents,  churches,  houses  of  education, 
on  the  Continent,  along  the  Rhine  chiefly.  It  is  said  that  even 
to-day  the  richest  mines  of  yet  unexplored  lore  of  this  character 
are  scattered  along  both  sides  of  the  great  German  river.  The 
frequent  movements  of  various  armies,  the  sieges  of  cities,  the 
horrors  of  war  which  have  raged  there  constantly  from  the  days 
of  Arminius  and  Yarro  down,  have  not  destroyed  every  thing, 
could  not  exhaust  the  rich  deposit  of  Irish  manuscripts  there 
concealed.  But  the  labor  of  striking  the  mine ! — of  opening 
those  musty  pages  falling  to  pieces  between  the  fingers  and  leav- 
ing in  the  hand  nothing  but  illegible  fragments  of  half-blackened 
parchment ;  and  the  further  labor  of  deciphering  them,  of  dis- 
covering what  they  speak  about,  and  if  they  are  likely  to  prove 
useful  to  the  purpose ! 

It  is  needless  to  descant  on  such  a  theme.  It  is  impossible 
to  give  any  true  idea  of  the  literary  labors  of  those  men,  without 
having  seen  and  perused  their  huge  folios,  many  of  which  have 
not  yet  been  published  to  the  world.  Poor  Colgan  could  give 
us  little  more  than  his  "  Trias  Thaumaturga"  and  that  was 
only  destined  to  form  the  portal  of  the  edifice  he  purposed  erect- 
ing as  a  shrine  to  the  memory  of  the  whole  host  of  saints  nurt- 
ured in  the  island — the  "Acta  Sanctorum  Hibemice" 

The  grand  idea,  which  first  germinated  in  the  minds  of  those 
men,  expanded  afterward  in  others  under  circumstances  more 
favorable.  Did  they  not  suggest  to  Bollandus  and  his  fellows 
the  thought  whose  realization  has  immortalized  them  ? 

In  tasks  such  as  these  were  the  Irish  emigrant  monks  of  the 
time  employed. 

There  was  yet  another  class  of  involuntary  Irish  exiles  : 
those  shipped  to  the  "  plantations  "  of  America,  to  the  "  tobac- 
co" and  "sugar"  islands,  to  Virginia  and  Jamaica,  but  princi- 
pally to  the  Barbadoes.  The  origin  of  this  new  kind  of  emigra- 
tion, already  touched  upon,  is  worthy  of  the  times  and  of  the 
men  who  called  it  forth. 

After  forty  thousand  soldiers  had  been  allowed,  or  rather 
compelled,  by  Cromwell  to  enlist  in  foreign  armies,  it  was  found 
that  many  had  left  behind  them  their  wives  and  children.  What 
was  to  be  done  with  these  "  widows  "  whose  husbands  and  nu- 
merous offspring  were  still  living  ?  They  could  not  be  sent  to 
Connaught,  as  women,  with  children  only,  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  "  plant "  that  desolate  province ;  they  could  not  be 
allowed  to  remain  in  their  native  place,  as  the  decree  had  gone 
forth  that  all  the  Irish  were  to  "  transplant "  or  be  transported : 
it  would  have  been  inconvenient  and  inexcusable  to  do  what  had 


384 


EMIGRATION. 


been  so  often  done  in  the  war — massacre  them  in  cold  blood — as 
the  war  was  over. 

To  relieve  the  government  of  this  difficulty,  Bristol  mer- 
chants, and  merchants  probably  from  other  English  cities,  trad- 
ing with  the  new  British  colonies  of  North  America,  thought  it 
a  providential  opening  for  a  great  profit  to  accrue  to  the  souls 
of  the  benighted  Irish  women  and  children,  and  likely  at  the 
same  time  to  add  something  to  their  own  purses  and  those  of 
their  friends,  the  West  India  planters. 

It  was  only  under  Elizabeth  that  permanent  colonies  were 
sent  out  from  England  to  the  continent  and  islands  of  the  New 
World.  The  Cavaliers  of  Virginia  are  as  well  known  in  the 
South  as  the  Puritans  of  New  England  in  the  North.  This  last 
colony  dated  only  from  the  time  of  the  Stuart  dynasty.  The 
great  question  for  all  those  transatlantic  establishments  was  that 
of  labor  ;  but  in  the  South  it  was  more  difficult  of  solution  than 
in  the  North,  where  Europeans  could  work  in  the  fields,  a  thing 
scarcely  possible  in  the  tropics.  The  natives,  as  we  know,  were 
first  employed  in  the  South  by  the  Spaniards,  and  soon  suc- 
cumbed to  the  demands  of  European  rapacity. 

In  the  West  Indies,  natives  of  two  different  races  existed  : 
the  soft  and  delicate  Indian  of  Hayti  and  Cuba,  and  the  fero- 
cious Caribs  of  many  other  islands.  The  first  race  soon  disap- 
peared ;  the  other  continued  refractory,  indomitable,  choosing  to 
perish  rather  than  labor ;  and  some  remnants  of  it  still  remain, 
saved  by  the  Catholic  Church.  As  yet,  African  negroes  had  not 
been  conveyed  there  in  sufficient  numbers. 

A  brilliant  thought  struck  the  minds,  at  once  pious,  active, 
and  business-like,  of  those  above-mentioned  Bristol  merchants — a 
thought  which  was  the  doom  of  thousands  of  Irish  women  and 
children. 

The  names  of  a  few  of  those  Bristol  firms  deserve  to  be 
handed  down.  Those  of  Messrs.  James  Sellick  and  Leader,  Mr. 
Robert  Yeomans,  Mr.  Joseph  Lawrence,  Dudley  North,  and 
John  Johnson,  are  furnished  by  Mr.  Prendergast,  who  tells  us 
that — 

"  The  Commissioners  of  Ireland  under  Cromwell  gave  them 
orders  upon  the  governors  of  garrisons  to  deliver  them  prisoners 
of  war.  .  .  .  upon  masters  of  work-houses,  to  hand  over  to  them 
the  destitute  under  their  care,  i  who  were  of  an  age  to  labor,' 
or,  if  women,  those  'who  were  marriageable,  and  not  past 
breeding ; '  and  gave  directions  to  all  in  authority,  to  seize  those 
who  had  no  visible  means  of  livelihood,  and  deliver  them  to 
these  agents  of  the  Bristol  merchants;  in  execution  of  which 
latter  directions,  Ireland  must  have  exhibited  scenes  in  every 
part  like  the  slave-hunts  in  Africa." 

A  contract  was  signed  on  September  14,  1653,  by  the  Com- 


EMIGRATION. 


285 


missioners  of  Ireland  and  Messrs.  Sellick  and  Leader,  "  to  supply 
them  (the  merchants)  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  women  of  the 
Irish  nation,  above  twelve  years  and  under  the  age  of  forty-five." 

The  fate  reserved  for  the  human  cattle,  as  they  must  have 
been  looked  upon  by  the  godly  gentlemen  who  bartered  over 
them,  may  be  well  imagined.  It  is  calculated  that,  in  four  years, 
those  English  firms  of  slave-dealers  had  shipped  six  thousand 
and  four  hundred  Irish  men  and  women,  boys  and  maidens,  to 
the  British  colonies  of  North  America. 

The  age  requisite  for  the  females  who  were  thus  shipped  off 
may  be  noted  ;  the  boys  and  men  were  not  to  be  under  twelve 
or  over  fifty.  These  latter  were  condemned  to  the  task  of  tilling 
the  soil  in  a  climate  where  the  negro  only  can  work  and  live. 
As  all  the  cost  to  their  masters  was  summed  up  in  the  expense 
of  transportation,  they  were  not  induced  to  spare  them,  even 
by  the  consideration  of  the  high  price  which,  it  is  said,  caused 
the  modern  slave-owners  of  America  to  treat  their  slaves  with 
what  might  be  called  a  commercial  humanity.  It  is  easy  to 
imagine,  then,  the  life  led  by  so  mauy  young  men  forced  to 
work  in  the  open  fields,  under  a  tropical  sun.  How  long  that  life 
lasted,  we  do  not  know ;  as  their  masters,  on  whom  they  entire- 
ly depended,  were  interested  in  keeping  the  knowledge  of  their 
fate  a  secret.  It  is  well  understood  that,  when  the  unfortunate 
victims  had  once  left  the  Irish  harbor  from  which  they  set  sail, 
no  one  ever  heard  of  them  again  ;  and,  if  the  parents  still  lived 
in  the  old  country,  they  were  left  to  their  conjectures  as  to  the 
probable  situation  of  their  children  in  the  new. 

Sir  William  Petty  says  that  "  of  boys  and  girls  alone  " — ex- 
clusive, consequently,  of  men  and  women — "  six  thousand  were 
thus  transplanted ;  but  the  total  number  of  Irish  sent  to  perish 
in  the  tobacco-islands,  as  they  were  called,  was  estimated  in  3ome 
Irish  accounts  at  one  hundred  thousand." 

The  "  Irish  accounts "  may  have  been  exaggerated,  but  the 
English  atoned  for  this  by  certainly  falling  below  the  mark,  as  is 
clear  from  the  fact  that,  according  to  them,  the  Commissioners 
of  Ireland  required  the  "  supply "  for  New  England  alone  to 
come  from  "  the  country  within  twenty  miles  of  Cork,  Youghall, 
Kinsale,  Waterford,  and  Wexford  ;  "  that  "  the  hunt  lasted  four 
years,"  and  was  carried  on  with  such  ardor  by  the  agents  of 
many  English  firms  that  those  men-catchers  employed  persons 
"  to  delude  poor  people  by  false  pretenses  into  by-places,  and 
thence  they  forced  them  on  board  their  ships ;  that  for  money 
sake  they  were  found  to  have  enticed  and  forced  women  from 
their  husbands,  and  children  from  their  parents,  who  maintained 
them  at  school ;  and  they  had  not  only  dealt  so  with  the  Irish, 
but  also  with  the  English."  For  this  reason,  the  order  was 
revoked,  and  the  "  hunt "  forbidden. 
25 


3S6 


EMIGRATION. 


When  agents  were  reduced  to  such  straits  after  the  govern- 
ment had  used  force,  as  Henry  Cromwell  acknowledged,  the 
large  extent  of  country  mentioned  above  must  have  been  well 
scoured  and  depopulated ;  and  certainly  a  far  greater  number  of 
victims  must  have  been  secured  by  all  those  means  combined 
than  is  given  in  the  English  accounts.    We  believe  the  Irish. 

One  other  source  of  supply  deserves  mention.  ISTot  only 
women  and  children,  but  priests  also,  were  hunted  down  and 
shipped  off  to  the  same  American  plantations ;  so  that  persons 
of  every  class  which  is  held  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  God  and  man 
for  its  character  and  helplessness,  were  compelled  to  emigrate, 
or  rather  to  undergo  the  worst  possible  fate  that  the  imagination 
of  man  can  conceive. 

In  1656  a  general  hattue  for  priests  took  place  all  over  Ire- 
land. The  prisons  seem  to  have  been  filled  to  overflowing. 
"  On  the  3d  of  May,  the  governors  of  the  respective  precincts 
were  ordered  to  send  them  with  sufficient  guards,  from  garrison 
to  garrison,  to  Carrickfergus,  to  be  there  put  on  board  of  such 
ships  as  should  sail  with  the  first  opportunity  to  the  Barbadoes. 
One  may  imagine  the  sufferings  of  this  toilsome  journey  by  the 
petition  of  one  of  them.  Paul  Cashin,  an  aged  priest,  appre- 
hended at  Maryborough,  and  sent  to  Philipstown,  on  the  way  to 
Carrickfergus,  there  fell  desperately  sick ;  and,  being  also  ex- 
tremely aged,  was  in  danger  of  perishing  in  restraint  from  want 
of  friends  and  means  of  relief.  On  the  27th  of  August,  the  com- 
missioners having  ascertained  the  truth  of  his  petition,  they  or- 
dered him  sixpence  a  day  during  his  sickness,  and  (in  answer, 
probably,  to  this  poor  prisoner's  prayer  to  be  saved  from  trans- 
plantation) their  order  directed  that  the  sixpence  should  be  con- 
tinued to  him  in  his  travel  thence  (after  his  recovery)  to  Carrick- 
fergus, in  order  to  his  transplantation  to  the  Barbadoes." — 
(Cromwellian  Settlement?) 

In  that  burning  island  of  the  West  Indies,  deprived  of  all 
means,  not  only  of  exercising  their  ministry  among  others,  but 
even  of  practising  their  religion  themselves,  of  fulfilling  their 
holy  obligation  of  prayer  and  sacrifice,  these  victims  of  such  an 
atrocious  persecution  were  employed  as  laborers  in  the  fields : 
their  transplantation  had  cost  money,  and  the  money  had  to  be 
repaid  a  hundred-fold  by  the  sweat  of  their  brow. 

Ship-loads  of  them  had  been  discharged  on  the  inhospitable 
shore  of  that  island  ;  each  with  a  high  calling  which  he  could  no 
longer  carry  out ;  each,  therefore,  tortured  in  his  soul,  with  all 
the  sweet  or  bitter  memories  of  his  past  life  crowding  on  his 
mind,  and  the  dreary  prospect  spreading  before  him,  to  the  end 
of  his  life,  of  no  change  from  his  rude  and  slavish  occupation  un- 
der the  burning  sun,  hearing  no  voice  but  that  of  the  harsh  task- 
master ;  his  eyes  saddened  and  his  heart  sickened  bv  the  open 


EMIGRATION. 


387 


and  daily  spectacle  of  immorality  and  woe,  with  no  ending  but 
the  grave. 

It  seems,  however,  that  these  holy  men  found  some  means  of 
fulfilliug  their  sacred  duty  as  God's  ministers,  for  the  inhuman 
traffic  in  such  slaves  as  these  to  the  Barbadoes  lasted  but  one 
year.  In  1657  it  was  decreed  that  this  island  should  no  longer 
be  their  place  of  transportation,  but,  instead,  the  desolate  isles 
of  Arran,  opposite  the  entrance  to  the  bay  of  Galway,  and  the 
isle  of  Innisboffin,  off  the  coast  of  Connemara.  Mr.  Prendergast 
thinks  that  this  change  of  policy  in  their  regard  may  have  been 
caused  by  the  price  of  their  transportation,  which  probably 
mounted  to  a  high  aggregate  sum.  But  he  must  be  mistaken. 
They  certainly  cost  no  more  than  women  and  children,  and  their 
labor  in  the  West  Indies  surely  covered  this  expense.  The  rea- 
son for  the  change  is  more  plainly  visible  in  the  nature  of  the 
site  substituted  for  the  Barbadoes  as  their  place  of  exile.  The 
"  holy  isles  "  of  Arran  and  the  isle  of  Innisboffin  were  then,  as 
now,  bare  of  every  thing — almost  of  inhabitants.  The  priests 
could  be  there  kept  as  in  a  prison,  and,  though  they  might  be  of 
no  profit  to  their  masters,  they  could  not  hear  a  voice  or  see  a 
face  other  than  those  of  their  fellow-captives.  In  the  West  In- 
dia islands  there  existed  an  already  thick  population,  and  the 
very  women  and  children  who  had  been  transported  thither  be- 
fore them  would  be  consoled  by  their  ministry,  though  prac- 
tised by  stealth,  and  strengthened  in  their  faith,  which  might 
thus  have  not  only  been  kept  alive  among  them,  but  spread  over 
the  whole  country. 

Who  can  say  if  the  faith,  preserved  among  the  many  Irish 
living  in  the  island  until  quite  recently,  was  not  owing  to  their 
exhortations  % 

"  The  first  Irish  people  who  found  permanent  homes  in  Amer- 
ica," says  Thomas  D' Arcy  McGee,  "  were  certain  Catholic  patri- 
ots banished  by  Oliver  Cromwell  to  Barbadoes.  ...  In  this 
island,  as  in  the  neighboring  Montserrat,  the  Celtic  language 
was  certainly  spoken  in  the  last  century,1  and  perhaps  it  is  part- 
ly attributable  to  this  early  Irish  colonization,  that  Barbadoes 
became  4  one  of  the  most  populous  islands  in  the  world.'  At  the 
end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  reported  to  contain  twen- 
ty thousand  inhabitants." 

Although  Barbadoes  is  the  chief  island  concerned  in  the 
present  considerations,  nevertheless  nearly  all  the  British  colo- 

1  The  Celtic  language — that  sure  sign  of  Catholicity — was  not  only  spoken  there 
last  century,  but  is  still  to-day.  The  writer  himself  heard  last  year  (1S71),  from  tiro 
young  American  seamen,  who  had  just  returned  from  a  voyage  to  this  island,  that  the 
negro  porters  and  white  'longshoremen  who  load  and  unload  the  ships  in  the  harbor, 
know  scarcely  any  other  language  than  the  Irish,  so  that  often  the  crews  of  English 
vessels  can  only  communicate  with  them  by  signs. 


388 


EMIGRATION. 


nies  then  existing  in  America,  received  their  share  of  this 
emigration.  Several  ship-loads  of  the  exiles  were  certainly  sent 
to  New  England,  at  the  very  time  that  New-Englanders  were 
earnestly  invited  by  the  British  Government  to  "  come  and  plant 
Ireland ; "  Virginia,  too,  paid  probably  with  tobacco  for  the 
young  men  and  maidens  sent  there  as  slaves.  The  "  Thurloe 
State  Papers"  disclose  the  fact  that  one  thousand  boys  and  one 
thousand  girls,  taken  in  Ireland  by  force,  were  dispatched  to 
Jamaica,  lately  added  to  the  empire  of  England  by  Admiral 
Penn,  father  of  the  celebrated  Quaker  founder  of  Pennsylvania. 

Thus,  then,  began  the  first  extensive  emigration  of  the  Irish 
to  various  parts  of  British  America — a  movement  quite  compul- 
sory, which  in  our  days  has  become  voluntary,  and  is  productive 
of  the  wonders  soon  to  claim  our  attention. 

The  involuntary  emigration  of  soldiers  and  clergymen  to  the 
Continent  of  Europe  during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies, was,  as  has  been  seen,  the  cause  of  great  advantages  to 
Ireland,  and  became,  in  the  designs  of  a  merciful  Providence,  a 
powerful  means  of  drawing  good  from  evil.  At  first  sight,  it 
seems  impossible  to  discover  a  similar  advantage  in  this  other 
most  involuntary  emigration  to  the  plantations  01  America. 

A  pagan  has  declared  that  u  there  is  no  spectacle  more  grate- 
ful to  the  eyes  of  God  than  a  just  man  struggling  with  adversity ; n 
and  where,  except  in  the  first  ages  of  Christianity,  could  more 
innocent  victims,  and  a  more  cruel  persecution,  be  witnessed  ? 

After  the  horrors  of  a  civil  war,  horrors  unparalleled  perhaps 
in  the  annals  of  modern  nations,  the  children  and  young  people 
of  both  sexes  are  hunted  down  over  an  area  of  several  Irish 
counties,  dragged  in  crowds  to  the  seaports,  and  there  jammed 
in  the  holds  of  small,  uncomfortable,  slow-going  vessels.  "What 
those  children  must  have  been  may  be  easily  imagined  from  the 
specimens  of  the  race  before  us  to-day.  We  do  not  speak  of 
their  beauty  and  comeliness  of  form,  on  which  a  Greek  writer  of 
the  age  of  Pericles  might  have  dilated,  and  found  a  subject 
worthy  of  his  pen ;  we  speak  of  their  moral  beauty,  their  sim- 
plicity, purity,  love  of  home,  attachment  to  their  family,  and 
God,  even  in  their  tenderest  age.  We  meet  them  scattered  over 
the  broad  surface  of  this  country — boys  and  girls  of  the  same 
race,  coming  from  the  same  counties,  chiefly  from  sweet  Wexford, 
the  beautiful,  calm,  pious  south  of  Ireland.  Who  but  a  monster 
could  think  of  harming  those  pure  and  affectionate  creatures,  so 
modest,  simple,  and  ready  to  trust  and  confide  in  every  one  they 
meet  ?  And  what  could  be  said  of  those  maidens,  now  so  well 
known  in  this  New  World,  of  whom  to  speak  is  to  praise,  whom 
to  see  is  to  admire  ?  Such  were  the  victims  selected  by  the 
Bristol  firms,  by  "  Lord  "  Henry  Cromwell,  Governor-General  of 
Ireland,  or  by  Lord  Thurloe,  secretary  and  mouth-piece  of  the 


EMIGRATION. 


389 


1  Protector."  They  were  to  be  violently  torn  from  their  parents 
and  friends,  from  every  one  they  knew  and  loved,  to  be  con- 
demned, after  surviving  the  horrible  ocean-passage  of  those  days, 
the  boys  to  work  on  sugar  and  tobacco  plantations,  the  girls  to 
lead  a  life  of  shame  in  the  harems  of  Jamaica  planters  ! 

Such  of  them  as  were  sent  North,  were  to  be  distributed 
among  the  "  saints "  of  New  England,  to  be  esteemed  by  the 
said  "saints"  as  "idolaters,"  "vipers,"  "young  reprobates," 
just  objects  of  "  the  wrath  of  God  ; "  or,  if  appearing  to  fall  in 
with  their  new  and  hard  task-masters,  to  be  greeted  with  words 
of  dubious  praise  as  "  brands  snatched  from  the  burning,"  "  ves- 
sels of  reprobation,"  destined,  perhaps,  by  a  due  imitation  of 
the  "  saints,"  to  become  some  day  "  vessels  of  election,"  in  the 
mean  time  to  be  unmercifully  scourged  by  both  master  and  mis- 
tress with  the  "  besom  of  righteousness  "  probably,  at  the  slight- 
est fault  or  mistake. 

Such  was  the  sorrowful  prospect  held  out  to  them  ;  there  was 
no  possibility  of  escape,  no  hope  of  going  back  to  the  only  coun- 
try they  loved.  In  the  South  they  soon,  very  soon,  sank  into  an 
obscure  grave.  In  the  North  a  prolonged  life  was  only  a  pro- 
longation of  torment.  For,  who  among  them  could  ever  think 
of  becoming  a  "  convert  ? "  They  had  been  taken  from  their 
island-home  when  over  twelve  years  of  age ;  they  had  already 
received  from  their  mothers  and  hunted  priests  a  religious  educa- 
tion, which  happily  could  never  be  effaced ;  they  were  to  bury 
in  their  hearts  all  their  lives  long  the  conviction  of  their  holy 
faith,  supported  by  the  only  hope  they  now  had,  the  hope  of 
heaven. 

Could  the  eyes  of  God,  looking  down  over  the  earth,  and 
marking  in  all  places  with  deep  pity  his  erring  children,  find 
souls  more  worthy  of  his  vast  paternal  love  %  Can  we  imagine 
that  the  ears  of  Heaven  were  deaf  to  their  prayers  poured  out  un- 
ceasingly all  those  long  days  and  nights  of  trials  and  of  tears? 
Can  we  read  in  the  designs  of  Providence  the  blessed  decrees 
which  such  scenes  called  forth  ?  Blind  that  we  are,  unable  often 
to  judge  rightly  of  our  own  thoughts,  often  an  enigma  to  our- 
selves, how  shall  we  dare  to  judge  of  what  is  so  far  above  us  ? 
No  Christian  at  least  can  pretend  that  all  those  miseries,  accumu- 
lated on  the  heads  of  so  many  innocent  victims,  had  no  other 
object  than  to  make  them  suffer.  Ireland  will  yet  profit  by  all 
the  merits,  unknown  and  untold,  gained  by  so  many  thousand 
human  hearts  and  souls  and  bodies  given  over  to  misfortunes 
which  baffle  expression. 

And  as  yet  we  have  said  nothing  of  those  cargoes  of  priests 
shipped  from  Carrickfergus  to  Barbadoes,  and  afterward  to  Arran 
and  Innisboffin.  Deprived  of  all  means  of  making  their  new 
country  in  America  a  witness  of  Catholic  prayer  and  worship — 


390 


EMIGRATION. 


not  one  of  them  probably  being  able  to  offer  the  holy  sacrifice 
even  for  a  single  day,  nor  administer  any  sacrament  unless  per- 
haps that  of  penance — by  stealth ;  not  one  dared  open  his  month 
and  preach  the  truth  publicly  to  all.  What  could  they  do  ?  They 
offered  the  sacrifice  of  themselves ;  the  very  sight  of  them  pos- 
sessed almost  the  virtue  of  a  sacrament,  and  their  lives  preached 
a  sermon  more  eloquent  than  any  of  those  which  entrance  the 
vastest  audience  of  a  solemn  cathedral. 

No  !  the  first  emigration  of  the  Irish  to  America  was  not  un- 

CD 

fruitful  in  its  results.  And  were  we  to  attribute  the  great  prog- 
ress made  by  Catholicity  on  the  American  Continent  in  the 
present  age  to  the  merits  of  those  numerous  victims  of  persecu- 
tion, who  could  prove  us  to  be  in  error,  and  say  that  between  the 
sufferings  of  innocence  in  the  seventeenth  and  the  glorious  suc- 
cess of  their  countrymen  in  the  nineteenth  century  there  is  no 
connection  ?  The  old  phrase  of  Tertullian,  "Sanguis  martyvum, 
semen  Christianorum"  has  been  proved  true  too  often  in  the  an- 
nals of  the  Catholic  Church  to  be  falsified  in  this  one  instance  ; 
yet,  if  what  our  days  witness  be  not  the  result  of  former  suffer- 
ings and  sacrifices,  those  trials  were  barren,  and  are  consequently 
inexplicable.  Every  cause  must  have  its  effect ;  and  it  is  a  truth 
which  no  Christian  can  hesitate  to  admit,  that  the  most  efficacious 
source  of  blessings  is  the  tear  of  the  innocent,  the  anguish  of  the 
pure  of  heart,  the  humble  prayer  of  the  persecuted  servant  of  God. 

When  we  come  to  speak  of  the  emigration  of  the  race  to  the 
American  Continent,  which  is  now  in  progress,  the  stupendous 
facts  which  will  make  our  narrative  and  excite  our  admiration 
must  be  regarded  and  accounted  for  from  a  religious  and  Catho- 
lic stand-point,  and  we  shall  then  be  able  to  refer  to  this  first  and 
apparently  barren  emigration.  Many  losses,  spiritual  as  well  as 
temporal,  may  stagger  the  unreflecting,  particularly  when  the 
whole  designs  of  Providence  are  as  yet  scarcely  in  their  inceptive 
stage;  but  the  more  they  are  developed  before  our  eyes,  the 
more  the  truth  is  made  clear  ;  every  difficulty  vanishes  ;  and  the 
soul  of  the  beholder  exclaims  "  Yes,  God  is  truly  wise  and  mer- 
ciful ! » 

But  it  is  time  at  last  to  enter  on  the  consideration  of  what  we 
esteem  the  first  great  issue  involved  in  the  resurrection  of  Ire- 
land, namely,  all  the  probable  consequences  of  the  present  emi- 
gration, which  is  the  true  point  we  are  aiming  at,  as  our  purpose 
is  to  show  the  benefit  that  Ireland  has  already  derived,  and  is 
sure  to  derive  later  on,  from  that  incessant  flow  of  the  great 
human  wave  starting  from  her  shore  to  oversweep  vast  continents 
and  islands  of  the  sea.  What  aid  will  it  afford  to  her  own  res- 
urrection at  home,  in  order  to  render  that  complete  and  lasting  ? 
This  may  be  said  to  have  been  our  main  object  in  writing  these 
pages ;  for,  although  it  may  be  impressive  enough  for  those  who 


EMIGRATION. 


391 


regard  the  subject  attentively,  and  although  it  will  certainly  be  a 
source  of  wonder  to  those  who  come  after  us,  nevertheless  it  fails 
to  strike  as  it  ought  the  great  mass  of  beholders. 

Often  in  the  history  of  nations,  while  the  mightiest  revolu- 
tions are  in  progress,  they  are  scarcely  perceptible  to  the  actors  in 
them  ;  all  their  circumstances,  their  most  active  and  effective 
operations,  being  like  the  silent  workings  of  Nature,  scarcely  sen- 
sible to  those  around,  until  the  end  comes  and  the  great  result  is 
achieved ;  then  history  records  the  event  as  one  fraught  with  the 
greatest  blessings,  or  misfortunes,  to  mankind.  So  will  it  be, 
we  have  no  doubt,  with  that  strange  concatenation  of  small 
domestic  facts  which  now  form  the  universal  phenomenon  of  all 
English-speaking  countries :  the  spread  of  the  Irish  everywhere. 

What  were  its  beginnings?  Nothing  at  all.  TVhatj^ood 
effects  followed  it  ?  None  perceptible  for  a  long  time.  These 
two  reflections  claim  our  attention  first,  for  we  must  study  the 
phenomenon,  in  all  its  circumstances  and  bearings. 

This  new  emigration  we  call  voluntary,  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  first,  which  was  forced  upon  large  portions  of  the  Irish  race. 
But,  in  reality,  the  Irish  undertook  it  at  the  beginning  with  reluc- 
tance ;  the  intolerable  state  of  existence  which  they  were  com- 
elled  to  undergo  in  their  own  land  acting  upon  them  with  a 
ind  of  moral  compulsion  amounting  to  an  almost  irresistible 
force.  For  it  was  either  the  famine  or  persecution  of  the  century 
preceding  which  first  drove  them  to  emigrate. 

Necessity  of  expansion  is  a  great  characteristic  of  their  race, 
an  instinctive  impulse  which  three  thousand  years  ago  carried  a 
part  of  it  into  the  heart  of  Asia.  But  this  particular  branch  had 
been  rooted  to  the  soil  for  so  many  centuries,  by  the  stern  neces- 
sity of  repelling  a  series  of  successive  invasions,  that  this  great 
characteristic  appeared  for  a  long  time  to  be  totally  extinct  in  it. 
They  seemed  neither  to  know  nor  care  any  more  for  foreign  coun- 
tries ;  and  no  race  in  Europe,  from  the  ninth  to  the  eighteenth 
century,  showed  itself  so  completely  wedded  to  the  soil,  and  in- 
capable of  the  thought  of  spreading  abroad. 

At  last  they  began  to  move.  And  what  was  the  first  origin 
of  the  new  movement  ?  No  one  can  say  precisely.  Only,  in 
various  accounts  of  occurrences  taking  place  in  the  island  during 
the  last  century,  we  occasionally  meet  with  such  entries  as  the 
following  by  Matthew  O'Connor,  in  his  "  Irish  Catholics  :  " 

"  The  summer  of  1728  was  fatal.  The  heart  of  the  politician 
was  steeled  against  the  miseries  of  the  Catholics ;  their  number 
excited  his  jealousy.  Their  decrease  by  the  silent  waste  of  fam- 
ine must  have  been  a  source  of  secret  joy ;  but  the  Protestant 
interest  was  declining  in  a  proportionate  degree  by  the  ravages 
of  starvation.  .  . 

"  Thousands  of  Protestants  took  shipping  in  Belfast  for  the 


392 


EMIGRATION". 


West  Indies.  .  .  .  The  policy  that  would  starve  the  Catholics 

at  home  would  not  deny  them  the  privilege  of  flight." 

This  is  the  first  mention  of  emigration,  on  any  extensive  scale, 
which  we  could  find  in  the  records  of  last  century ;  and,  at  the 
time  when  the  Protestant  Irish  went  to  America,  where  they 
doubtless  met  with  congenial  minds  in  the  Puritans  of  New  Eng- 
land, the  Catholics  still  turned,  as  before,  to  Spain  and  France. 

But  a  new  entry  in  1762  unfolds  a  new  aspect.  This  time 
Catholics  alone  are  spoken  of :  "No  resource  remained  to  the 
peasantry  but  emigration.  The  few  who  had  means  sought  an 
asylum  in  the  American  plantations  ;  such  as  remained  were  al- 
lowed generally  an  acre  of  ground  for  the  support  of  their  fami- 
lies, and  commonage  for  a  cow,  but  at  rents  the  most  exorbitant." 

This  is  the  first  instance  we  meet  with  of  Irish  Catholics 
emigrating  to  America,  at  least  in  comparatively  large  bodies. 
They  were  no  doubt  encouraged  to  take  this  step  by  the  accounts 
which  reached  them  of  the  success  of  the  Ulster  Protestants 
who  had  gone  before,  and  whose  posterity  is  now  to  be  found  in 
the  South  chiefly,  as  low  down  as  Carolina  and  Georgia. 

But  the  relative  prospects  of  the  Protestants  and  Catholica 
were  at  that  time  far  from  being  equally  good.  The  first,  driven 
from  home  by  famine,  found  a  land  of  plenty  awaiting  them,  a 
genial  climate,  perfect  toleration  of  their  religious  tenets  every- 
where, and  in  some  districts  they  gained  real  political  influence. 
They  were  received  with  open  arms  by  the  colonists,  who  were 
unable  to  occupy  the  land  alone,  and  ready  to  welcome  new  fel- 
low-citizens, who  would  aid  them  in  their  contests  with  the  Indi- 
ans, and  add  materially  to  their  prosperity  and  resources.  All 
persons  and  all  things  then  smiled  on  the  new-comer,  and  with- 
in a  very  short  time  he  found  himself  possessed  of  more  than  he 
had  ever  expected.  Thus  others  were  induced  to  follow  from 
the  north  of  Ireland,  and  famine  was  no  longer  the  only  motive 
power  which  impelled  them  to  leave  their  native  land.  Mr. 
Bancroft  tells  us  they  were  called  Scotch-Irish. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Irish  Catholics  found  a  fertile  soil 
and  an  inviting  climate ;  Nature  welcomed  them,  but  man  re- 
coiled, inflamed  by  a  bitter  hostility  against  their  faith  and  their 
very  name.  This  feeling  of  opposition,  on  both  accounts,  was 
already  fast  wearing  away  in  Europe ;  but  the  "  liberality  "  spring- 
ing up  in  the  Old  "World,  owing  to  a  variety  of  circumstances, 
had  not  yet  penetrated  into  the  British  colonies  of  North  Amer- 
iea.  They  were  still,  in  this  respect,  in  the  state  in  which  the 
Revolution  of  1688  had  left  them  :  Catholicity  was  proscribed 
everywhere,  and  the  penal  laws  of  the  Old  World  were  attempted 
to  be  enforced  in  the  New,  as  far  as  the  different  state  of  the 
country  would  permit.  A  few  details,  taken  mainly  from  Mr. 
Bancroft's  history,  will  give  us  a  tolerably  exact  idea  of  the 


EMIGRATION. 


393 


situation  in  which  the  newly-arrived  Irish  Catholic  found  him- 
self in  that  future  land  of  liberty. 

The  consequences  of  the  downfall  of  James  II.  were  soon 
fully  accepted  by  the  British  colonies,  throughout  which  changes 
of  greater  or  less  degree  took  place  in  the  laws,  not  only  without 
any  great  opposition,  but  in  the  main  with  the  full  applause  of  all 
parties.  The  Stuart  dynasty  was  thrown  over  more  easily  in 
America  than  it  had  been  in  the  British  Isles. 

It  is  universally  admitted  that  one  of  the  greatest  consequences 
of  that  downfall  was  the  renewed  persecution  of  Catholics  in 
England  and  Ireland.    In  the  words  of  Mr.  Bancroft : 

"  The  Revolution  of  1688,  narrow  in  its  principles,  imperfect 
in  its  details,  frightfully  intolerant  toward  Catholics,  forms  an 
era  in  the  liberty  of  England  and  of  mankind." 

It  will  be  no  surprise,  then,  on  coming  to  review  the  various 
colonies,  to  find  the  oppression  of  the  Catholic  Church  common 
to  all  without  one  exception. 

Beginning  with  the  South,  we  find  the  new  governor  of  South 
Carolina,  Archdale,  a  Quaker,  and,  on  that  account,  personally 
well  disposed  toward  all,  desirous  of  showing  that  a  Quaker 
could  respect  the  faith  of  a  "  Papist,"  commencing  his  administra- 
tion by  sending  back  to  the  Spanish  Governor  of  Florida  four 
Indian  converts  of  the  Spanish  priests,  who  were  exposed  as 
slaves  for  sale  in  Carolina.  He  likewise  enfranchised  the  Hugue- 
nots of  South  Carolina,  who,  up  to  this  time,  had  been  kept 
under  by  the  High  Church  oligarchy.  Yet,  when  he  came  to 
urge  the  adoption  of  liberal  measures  toward  all  in  the  state, 
the  colonial  Legislature  consented  to  confer  liberty  of  conscience 
on  all  Christians,  with  the  exception  of  "  Papists." 

In  North  Carolina,  the  Church  of  England  was  actually  made 
the  state  Church,  in  1704,  and  the  Legislature  enacted  that  "  no 
one  who  would  not  take  the  oath  prescribed  by  law  should  hold 
a  place  of  trust  in  the  colony." 

Of  Virginia,  Spots  wood,  the  governor,  could  write  to  Eng- 
land, in  1711 :  "  This  government  is  in  perfect  peace  and  tran- 
quillity, under  a  due  obedience  to  royal  authority,  and  a  gentle- 
manly confot^mity  to  the  Church  of  England." 

Of  Maryland,  Mr.  Bancroft  writes  that  the  English  Revolu- 
tion was  a  Protestant  revolution. 

"  A  convention  of  the  associates  c  for  the  defence  of  the  Prot- 
estant religion'  assumed  the  government,  and,  in  an  address  to 
King  "William,  denounced  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  the  prev- 
alence of  popish  idolatry,  the  connivance  by  the  previous  gov- 
ernment at  murders  of  Protestants,  and  the  danger  from  plots 
with  the  French  and  Indians." 

Hence,  a  little  farther  on,  we  read  :  "  The  Roman  Catholics 
alone  were  left  without  an  ally,  exposed  to  English  bigotry  and 


394: 


EMIGRATION. 


colonial  injustice.  They  alone  were  disfranchised  on  the  soil 
which,  long  before  Locke  pleaded  for  toleration,  or  Penn  for 
religious  freedom,  they  had  chosen,  not  as  their  own  asylum 
only,  but,  with  Catholic  liberality,  as  the  asylum  of  every  per- 
secuted sect.  In  the  land  which  Catholics  had  opened  for  Prot- 
estants, the  Catholic  inhabitant  was  the  sole  victim  to  Anglican 
intolerance.  Mass  might  not  be  said  publicly.  No  Catholic 
priest  or  bishop  might  utter  his  faith  in  a  voice  of  persuasion. 
No  Catholic  might  teach  the  young.  If  the  wayward  child  of  a 
Papist  would  but  become  an  apostate,  the  law  wrested  for  him 
from  his  parents  a  share  of  their  property.  The  disfranchise- 
ment of  the  proprietary  related  to  his  creed,  not  to  his  family. 
Such  were  the  methods  adopted  6  to  prevent  the  growth  of 
Popery.'  " 

Mr.  Bancroft  adds  with  much  truth  and  force  :  "  Who  shall 
say  that  the  faith  of  the  cultivated  individual  is  firmer  than  the 
faith  of  the  common  people  \  Who  shall  say  that  the  many 
are  fickle,  that  the  chief  is  firm  ?  To  recover  the  inheritance  of 
authority,  Benedict,  the  son  of  the  proprietary,  renounced  the 
Catholic  Church  for  that  of  England ;  the  persecution  never 
crushed  the  faith  of  the  humble  colonists." 

Pennsylvania  appears  to  form  an  exception  to  that  univer- 
sal animosity  against  Catholics.  It  is  said  that,  owing  to  Wil- 
liam Penn,  "  religious  liberty  was  established,  and  every  public 
employment  was  open  to  every  man  professing  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ.  ...  In  Pennsylvania  human  rights  were  respected :  the 
fundamental  law  of  "William  Penn,  even  his  detractors  concede, 
was  in  harmony  with  universal  reason,  and  true  to  the  ancient 
and  just  liberties  of  the  people." 

Such  may  have  been  the  written  law — the  theory  ;  but  the 
law  as  executed — the  fact — was  far  from  realizing  those  fine 
promises.  As  late  as  the  end  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  the  Cath- 
olics of  Philadelphia  were  compelled  to  hide  away  their  worship 
in  a  small  chapel,  surrounded  by  buildings  whose  only  access 
was  a  dark  and  winding  alley  still  in  existence  a  few  years  back. 

It  is  known,  moreover,  that  Penn  himself,  in  1708,  forbade 
mass  to  be  celebrated  in  the  colony.  According  to  T.  D.  McGee, 
/Governor  Gordon,  in  1734,  prohibited  the  erection  of  a  Catholic 
church  in  Walnut  Street ;  and,  in  1736,  a  private  house  having 
been  purchased  at  the  corner  of  Second  and  Chestnut  streets  for 
the  same  object,  it  was  again  prohibited. 

New  Jersey  showed  her  liberality  in  the  form  sacred  to  all 
the  other  colonies:  "Liberty  of  conscience  was  granted  to  all 
but  papists." 

There  was  as  yet  no  homogeneity  in  New  York,  the  Dutch 
6till  preserving  great  power,  and,  consequently,  "  the  idea  of 
.toleration  was  still  imperfect  in  New  Netherlands;  equality 


EMIGRATION. 


395 


among  religious  sects  was  unknown."  If  this  was  the  case  with 
several  Protestant  organizations,  what  must  it  have  been  with 
the  Catholics  ?  It  is  well  known  that  no  one  dared  openly  avow 
his  faith  in  the  true  Church,  and  that  John  Ury  was  hanged  in 
1741  for  being  a  priest,  though  whether  he  was  a  priest  or  not  is 
still  a  question. 

Rhode  Island  had  proclaimed  in  the  beginning  "  entire  free- 
dom of  mind ; "  but,  after  the  Revolution  of  1688,  the  colony 
"  interpolated  into  the  statute-book  the  exclusion  of  papists  from 
the  established  equality  " 

The  spirit  of  Connecticut  is  well  expressed  in  the  words  of  the 
address  sent  by  the  colony  to  King  William  of  Orange,  cn  his  acces- 
sion :  "  Great  was  the  day  when  the  Lord  who  sitteth  upon  the 
floods  did  divide  his  and  your  adversaries  like  the  waters  of  Jor- 
dan, and  did  begin  to  magnify  you  like  Joshua,  by  the  deliverance 
of  the  English  dominions  from  popery  and  slavery."  We  wonder 
how  the  taciturn  Hollander  received  this  effusion  of  Connecticut  ? 
There  is  nothing  more  to  add  on  the  situation  of  the  Catholics  in 
the  land  of  the  "  blue  laws." 

In  Massachusetts  it  will  be  no  surprise  to  hear  that  "  every 
form  of  Christianity,  except  the  Roman  Catholic,  was  enfran- 
chised." 

This  short  sketch  is  eloquent  enough  with  reference  to  the 
position  in  which  the  poor  Irish  immigrant  found  himself  on  land- 
ing on  the  shores  of  the  New  World.  His  faith  he  found  pro- 
scribed as  severely  almost  as  in  his  own  country.  He  was  com- 
pelled to  conceal  it ;  and,  even  had  he  been  free  to  make  open 
profession  of  it,  he  could  find  no  minister  of  his  creed  tolerated 
anywhere.  The  country  was  a  perfect  blank  as  far  as  the  cere- 
monies of  his  religion  went.  In  his  native  land  he  knew  where 
to  find  a  priest ;  he  was  advised  of  the  day  and  of  the  precise 
place  where  he  might  assist  at  the  sacred  mysteries  of  his  reli- 
gion ;  and,  were  it  in  the  cave  or  on  the  mountain-top,  in  the  bog 
or  the  morass,  he  knew  that  there  he  could  adore  and  receive  his 
God  as  truly  and  as  worthily  as  in  the  magnificent  domes  looking 
proudly  to  heaven  under  Catholic  skies.  But  in  British  North 
America,  except  in  a  few  counties  of  Maryland,  where  the  true 
faith  had  once  been  openly  planted  and  taken  root,  where  some 
clergymen  of  his  own  creed  were  even  still  to  be  found,  though 
forced  to  conceal,  or  at  least  not  expose  themselves  too  freely, 
he  knew  that  elsewhere  it  was  useless  for  him  to  inquire,  not 
only  for  a  sacred  edifice  where  he  might  go  to  thank  his  God  on 
landing,  but  even  to  look  for  a  priest  should  he  find  himself  at 
the  point  of  death. 

At  the  present  day  it  is  almost  impossible  to  give  any  details 
and  move  the  reader  by  a  picture  of  the  complete  spiritual  desti- 
tution of  the  Irish  immigrant  in  his  new  home.  Here  and  there, 


396 


EMIGRATION. 


however,  we  meet,  in  reading,  facts  apparently  insignificant  in 
themselves,  which  at  first  sight  seem  to  have  no  connection 
whatever  with  the  subject  on  hand,  yet  which,  with  the  aid  of 
reflection,  throw  quite  a  flood  of  light  on  it,  as  convincing  as  it  is 
unexpected.    Take,  for  instance,  the  following  : 

"  In  the  last  year  of  the  administration  of  Andros  in  Massa- 
chusetts," says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "the  daughter  of  John  Goodwin,  a 
child  of  thirteen  years,  charged  a  laundress  with  having  stolen 
linen  from  the  family.  Glover,  the  mother  of  the  laundress,  a 
friendless  immigrant,  almost  ignorant  of  English,  like  a  true 
woman,  with  a  mother's  heart,  rebuked  the  false  accusation. 
Immediately,  the  girl,  to  secure  revenge,  became  bewitched.  The 
infection  spread.  Three  others  of  the  family,  the  youngest  a  boy 
of  less  than  five  years  old,  soon  succeeded  in  equally  arresting 
public  attention.  .  .  .  Cotton  Mather  went  to  pray  by  the  side 
of  one  of  them,  and,  lo  !  the  child  lost  her  hearing  till  prayer 
was  over.  What  was  to  be  done  ?  The  four  ministers  of  Boston 
and  the  one  of  Charlestown  assembled  in  Goodwin's  house,  and 
spent  a  whole  day  of  fasting  in  prayer.  In  consequence,  the 
youngest  child,  the  little  one  of  five  years  old,  was  '  delivered.' 
But,  if  the  ministers  could  thus  by  prayer  (  deliver '  a  possessed 
child,  there  must  have  been  a  witch.  The  honor  of  the  ministers 
required  a  prosecution  of  the  affair ;  and  the  magistrates,  Wil- 
liam Stoughton  being  one,  with  a  '  vigor '  which  the  united  min- 
isters commended  as  6  just,'  made  c  a  discovery  of  the  wicked  in- 
strument of  the  devil.'  The  culprit  was  evidently  a  wild  Irish- 
woman, of  a  strange  tongue.  Goodwin,  who  made  the  com- 
plaint, '  had  no  proof  that  could  have  done  her  any  hurt ; '  but 
the  6  scandalous  old  hag,'  whom  some  thought  '  crazed  in  her 
intellectuals,'  was  bewildered,  and  made  strange  answers,  which 
were  taken  as  confessions,  sometimes,  in  excitement,  using  her 
native  dialect.  ...  It  was  plain  the  prisoner  was  a  Roman  Cath- 
olic ;  she  had  never  learned  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  English  ;  she 
could  repeat  the  Pater  Foster  fluently  enough,  but  not  quite 
correctly;  so,  the  ministers  and  Goodwin's  family  had  the  satisfac- 
tion of  getting  her  condemned  as  a  witch  and  executed." 

The  position  of  this  poor  woman,  who  had  never  openly  de- 
clared herself  a  Catholic,  but  which  fact  the  people  were  led  to 
infer  from  various  circumstances,  expresses  the  condition  of  all 
Irish  immigrants  at  the  time.  A  further  fact  recorded  by  the 
same  historian  shows  what  the  feeling  toward  Catholics  was  at 
the  time  in  Massachusetts  : 

"  The  girl,  who  knew  herself  to  be  a  deceiver,  had  no  re- 
morse, and  to  the  ministers  it  never  occurred  that  vanity  and 
love  of  power  had  blinded  their  judgment." 

The  reason  was  plain  :  Glover  was  a  Catholic.  How  could 
the  girl  be  expected  to  feel  remorse  for  having  brought  about  her 


EMIGRATION. 


397 


death  ?  How  could  the  ministers  feel  the  least  concern  because 
their  "  vanity  and  love  of  power  "  had  effected  the  hanging  of 
such  a  creature  % — "  a  vessel  of  wrath,"  in  any  case ;  a  "  predes- 
tined reprobate,"  beyond  doubt,  whose  ignominious  death  on 
earth  and  eternal  punishment  afterward  were  "  sl  true  source  of 
joy  in  heaven  and  an  increase  of  glory  for  the  infinite  justice  of 
God,"  if  there  was  any  truth  in  Calvinism. 

Another  fact,  as  suggestive  as  the  above,  is  found  in  McGee's 
"  Irish  Settlers  in  America : "  "  The  first  Catholic  church  that 
we  find  in  Pennsylvania,  after  Penn's  suppression  of  them  in 
1708,  was  connected  with  the  house  of  a  Miss  Elizabeth  McGau- 
ley,  an  Irish  lady,  who,  with  several  of  her  tenantry,  settled  on 
land  on  the  road  leading  from  Nicetown  to  Frankfort.  Near  the 
site  of  this  ancient  sanctuary  stood  a  tomb,  inscribed,  c  John 
Michael  Brown,  ob.  15th  December,  a.  d.  1750.  K.  I.  P.'  He 
had  been  a  priest  residing  there  incognitoP 

Miss  E.  McGauley  was  not  poor,  like  Glover.  On  coming  to 
America  with  some  of  her  tenantry,  she  secured  herself  before- 
hand against  the  difficulty  of  practising  her  religion  ;  and,  know- 
ing well  that  no  priest  was  to  be  found  in  the  country,  she 
brought  one  with  her.  All  the  remainder  of  his  life  did  this 
minister  of  God  reside  in  her  house  incognito,  keeping  the  min- 
istry intrusted  to  him  for  the  service  of  all  a  profound  secret. 
He  never  attempted,  probably,  to  enlighten  his  prejudiced  and 
ignorant  neighbors  ;  the  knowledge  of  his  character  and  the  ben- 
efits arising  from  his  presence  were  confined  to  the  lady  of  the 
house  and  her  faithful  tenantry.  Even  after  his  death  the  secret 
was  still  kept,  and  only  the  cabalistic  characters  "  It.  I.  P."  remain 
to  tell  an  intelligent  reader  that  he  was  neither  Quaker  nor 
Protestant ;  and,  probably,  tradition  alone,  preserved  doubtless 
in  the  neighborhood,  could  assure  us  that  he  was  a  priest. 

How  many  Catholics  scattered  over  the  broad  colony  of 
Pennsylvania,  immigrants  like  Miss  McGauley,  but  unlike  her  in 
their  poverty,  and  therefore  unable  to  hire  a  clergyman,  never 
knew  that  they  might  unburden  their  consciences  and  enjoy  the 
consolations  of  their  religion,  by  travelling  a  hundred  miles  or 
so  to  the  house  "  on  the  road  leading  from  Nicetown  to  Frank- 
fort ?  "  How  many  lived  and  died  within  a  short  distance,  and 
never  knocked  at  the  door,  owing  to  their  ignorance  of  the  class 
of  inmates  ?  Thus,  although  there  were  some  ministers  of  God 
in  the  country,  their  number  was  so  small,  and  they  were  so  far 
distant  from  each  other,  that  their  labors  were  utterly  unavail- 
ing for  the  great  body  of  the  Catholic  immigrants,  who  would 
have  rejoiced  to  throw  themselves  at  their  feet,  and  ease  their 
hearts  and  purify  their  souls  by  confession. 

Some  Irishmen,  it  is  true,  had  emigrated  before  such  conceal- 
ment was  requisite,  in  Maryland  at  least,  where  an  asylum  for 


398 


EMIGRATION. 


all  had  been  opened  by  Lord  Baltimore,  a  Catholic.  Thus,  the 
Carrolls  had  settled  in  Prince  George  County.  They  were  at 
liberty  to  make  open  use  of  the  services  of  the  English  fathers 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  who  for  a  long  time  officiated  undis- 
guisedly  among  their  English  Catholic  flocks  ;  but,  as  was  seen, 
after  the  Revolution  of  1688,  Catholics  were  disfranchised  in 
Maryland  even,  their  religious  rites  proscribed,  and  penalties 
enacted  against  the  open  profession  of  their  worship. 

Thus,  concealment  became  a  necessity  there  also  ;  the  policy 
of  keeping  the  existence  of  clergymen  and  the  celebration  of  the 
holy  mysteries  secret  had  to  be  adopted  there  as  in  other  colo- 
nies. The  Carroll  family,  like  Miss  Elizabeth  McGauley,  gave 
refuge  in  their  house  to  a  minister  of  their  own  religion,  and  it 
was  in  such  a  chapel-house  that  John  Carroll  was  born,  on  the 
8th  of  January,  1735 — the  first  Bishop  and  Archbishop  of  Balti- 
more. 

It  is  therefore  no  matter  for  wonder  that  the  number  of  chil- 
dren of  the  Church  in  North  America  did  not  increase  in  propor- 
tion to  the  number  of  Catholic  immigrants  ;  on  the  contrary,  the 
posterity  of  the  majority  of  those  who  chose  the  British  colonies 
for  their  home  was  lost  to  her.  The  immigrants  themselves,  we 
are  confident,  never  lost  their  faith.  Although  living  for  years 
without  any  exterior  help,  without  receiving  a  word  of  instruc- 
tion or  advice,  without  the  celebration  of  any  religious  rite  what- 
ever, or  the  reception  of  any  sacrament,  yet,  faith  was  too  deeply 
rooted  in  their  minds  and  hearts  to  be  ever  eradicated,  or  shaken 
even. 

But,  though  they  themselves  clung  fast  to  their  faith  in  the 
midst  of  so  many  adverse  circumstances,  what  of  their  children  ? 

There  is  no  doubt  that  many  of  them  did,  individually,  every 
thing  possible  to  transmit  that  faith  to  their  children  ;  but  all 
they  could  do  was  to  speak  privately,  to  warn  them  against  dan- 
gers, and  set  up  before  them  the  example  of  a  blameless  life. 
IN  ot  only  was  there  no  priest  to  initiate  them  into  the  mysteries 
granted  by  Christ  to  the  redeemed  soul ;  there  was  not  even  a 
Catholic  school-master  to  instruct  them.  Even  the  "  hedge- 
school  "  could  not  be  set  on  foot.  Books  were  unknown  ;  Cath- 
olic literature,  in  the  modern  sense,  had  not  yet  been  born ; 
there  was  no  vestige  of  such  a  thing  beyond,  perhaps,  an  occa- 
sional old,  worn,  and  torn,  yet  dearly-prized  and  carefully-con- 
cealed prayer-book,  dating  from  the  happy  days  of  the  Confed- 
eration of  Kilkenny. 

There  is  no  reason,  then,  for  surprise  in  the  fact  that,  although 
the  families  of  those  first  Irish  settlers  were  numerous  and  scat- 
tered over  all  the  district  which  afterward  became  the  Middle 
and  Southern  States,  only  a  faint  tradition  remained  among 
many  of  them  that  they  really  belonged  to  the  old  Church  and 


EMIGRATION. 


399 


u  ouglit  to  be  Catholics."  How  often  was  this  the  case  thirty 
years  ago,  particularly  in  the  South  ! 

It  would  not  be  right  to  conclude  that  all  this  was  a  pure  and 
unmitigated  loss  to  the  Church  of  Christ.  Later  on,  we  shall 
have  to  speak  of  more  numerous  and  serious  losses :  but  a  few 
words  on  this  first  one  may  not  be  thrown  away. 

As  in  the  material  world  an  iufinite  number  of  germs  are 
lost,  and  quantities  ot  seeds,  wafted  on  the  breeze  from  giant 
trees  and  humble  plants,  fall  and  perish  on  a  barren  rock,  in  the 
eddies  of  a  swift-running  brook,  or,  oftener  still,  on  the  hard  and 
unkind  soil  on  which  they  have  happened  to  alight;  so  that,  out 
of  a  thousand  germs,  a  few  only  find  every  thing  congenial  to 
their  growth,  and  attain  to  the  full  size  allotted  them  by  Nature 
— nevertheless,  despite  this  loss,  the  species  is  not  only  preserved, 
but  so  multiplied  as  to  produce  on  the  beholder,  in  after-time, 
the  impression  that,  not  only  no  loss  has  been  sustained,  but 
that  much  has  been  gained.  So  is  it  with  the  Catholic  Church 
in  general,  and  in  particular  with  the  momentous  events  now 
being  considered. 

The  cultivated  field  of  the  "  father  of  the  family  "was  about 
to  be  extended  over  a  new  and  vast  area.  A  whole  continent 
was  to  be  "  fenced  around,"  and  "  olive-trees,"  and  "  fig-trees," 
and  all  plants  useful  and  ornamental,  were  destined  to  flourish 
in  that  vast  garden  to  the  end  of  time.  The  great  and  eternal 
Father  was,  by  his  providence,  directing  the  mighty  operation 
from  above,  and  marking  the  various  points  of  the  compass  to 
which  the  floating  germs  were  to  be  wafted.  He  knew  that  he 
was  planting  a  new  garden  for  his  Son,  who  would,  as  usual,  be 
the  first  husbandman,  and  employ  many  workmen  to  help  him. 

How  could  it  be  expected  that  all  would  be  gain  without  loss, 
when  the  harvest-time  had  not  yet  arrived,  and  the  "  enemy " 
was  busy  sowing  "  tares  "  in  all  directions  ?  Was  not  the  work 
human  as  well  as  divine  %  and,  as  human,  did  not  the  work  par- 
take of  the  imperfection  of  human  things? 

The  continent  had  evidently  been  predestined  to  form  one 
of  the  strongest  branches  of  the  great  Catholic  tree.  Discovered 
before  the  modern  heresies  of  Protestantism  had  shown  them- 
selves, it  was  to  bring  into  the  fold  of  Christ  new  nations,  when 
some  old  ones  were  to  be  cut  off  and  wither  away.  This  has 
long  ago  been  pointed  out ;  but  another  mighty  design  of  Provi- 
dence there  was  which  only  now  begins  to  snow  itself. 

Columbus  was  in  search  of  Asia  and  the  holy  sepulchre 
when  he  stumbled  on  the  New  World.  Nor  was  the  idea  of  his 
great  mind  altogether  a  delusion.  The  new  continent  was  in 
future  ages  to  be  used  as  the  highway  from  Europe  to  the 
Orient ;  China,  Japan,  India,  vast  regions  filled  with  innumer- 
able multitudes  of  human  beings,  had,  so  far,  scarcely  been 


400 


EMIGRATION. 


touched,  could  scarcely  be  touched,  by  Catholicism  coming  from 
Europe.  In  fact  it  was  too  far  away,  and  the  means  of  intercom- 
munication were  too  inadequate.  The  holy  Catholic  Church 
increases  as  "  things  which  grow ; "  a  few  husbandmen — mission- 
aries— are  required  to  set  the  first  seedlings  and  plants  in  the 
soil,  to  water  them,  watch  over  them,  and  see  that  they  thrive 
and  flourish  ;  the  rest  of  the  process  is  a  matter  of  seeds  wafted 
by  the  wind,  falling  and  taking  root  in  a  fertile  soil,  which  has 
been  already  prepared  for  their  reception.  If  there  were  no 
other  means  of  propagation  than  the  toil  and  sweat  of  the  hus- 
bandman, how  long  would  it  take  to  cover  the  whole  earth  with 
vegetation  ?  The  first  propagation  of  Christianity  was  done  in 
this  way  ;  hence  it  took  more  than  ten  centuries  to  Christianize 
Europe.  In  the  fifth  century,  Rome  was  still  thoroughly  pagan. 
Were  the  vast  regions  of  that  dim,  far-away  East  to  undergo 
a  similar  slow  and  painful  process,  necessitating  an  immense 
amount  of  labor,  centuries  and  centuries  in  duration  ?  God  hast- 
ened the  process  by  adding  to  it  the  wafting  of  seeds,  and  Amer- 
ica was  to  be  the  vast  nursery  from  which  those  seeds  were  to 
come.  It  was  from  that  long  and  alternately  widening  and 
narrowing  belt  of  land,  running  down  the  sea  from  north  to 
south,  that  the  Japhetic  race  was  to  invade  the  "  tents  of  Sem." 

Thus  was  the  dream  of  Columbus  to  be  realized.  Asia  would 
be  reached  by  Europe,  of  which  America  would  form  a  part. 
The  east  of  Asia  would  become  contiguous  to  a  real  European 
population,  large  masses  of  which  would  easily  come  in  contact 
with  the  Mongolian  and  Malay  races  of  their  immediate  neigh- 
borhood, steam  and  modern  improvements  in  travel  reducing 
the  intervening  distance  to  a  matter  of  a  few  days.  Thus  the 
Japhetic  movement  could  be  carried  out  on  a  large  scale,  and 
European  civilization  come  to  supersede  the  obsolete  manners  of 
those  old  and  effete  races  of  Eastern  Asia.  The  unity  of  man- 
kind would  be  vindicated  against  its  blasphemers  ;  and,  to  crown 
the  whole,  Christianity  would  find  its  way  back  to  the  cradle  of 
man,  then,  to  its  own  birthplace,  Calvary  and  the  sepulchre  of 
Christ.  Thus  would  the  conjectural  vision  of  the  great  Genoese 
become  only  an  explanation  of  the  old  prophecy  of  the  second 
father  of  mankind.1 

Thus  would  the  Church  at  last  become  rigorously  Catholic, 
and  not  as  some  theologians  imagined,  in  their  desire  to  make 
actual,  incomplete  facts  coincide  with  a  far  wider  theory,  only 
Catholic  by  approximation. 

If  it  were  allowed  us  to  read  the  designs  of  Providence  rever- 
ently, we  might  say,  without  presumption,  that  it  seems  such  is 
to  be  future  history,  although  simple  conjecture  may  produce 

1  The  reader  will  understand  that  all  this  is  merely  "  a  view,"  and  not  given  as  a 
Eure  interpretation  of  Scripture  or  past  history. 


EMIGRATION. 


401 


too  strong  an  impression  on  our  minds.  But,  at  the  period  of 
which  we  speak,  shortly  after  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  any 
one  who  would  have  spoken  thus  would  have  been  justly  deemed 
a  visionary.  The  south  of  America,  though  possessed  of  the 
true  religion,  seemed  inert ;  the  North  was  already  showing 
signs  of  an  intense  future  activity,  but  all  opposed  to  the  truth. 
God  was  about  to  change  those  appearances,  and,  by  infusing  the 
Irish  element  into  the  North,  produce,  in  a  comparatively  short 
space  of  time,  the  wonderful  phenomenon  which  we  witness. 

Yet,  so  short-sighted  are  we,  that  some  are  almost  staggered 
in  their  faith,  because  the  children  of  the  earliest  Irish  emigrants 
to  this  country  were  apparently  lost  to  the  Church. 

Nevertheless,  several  circumstances  might  be  brought  forward 
to  show  that  a  real  gain  accrued  to  the  Church  from  these  lost 
children  of  the  first  Irish  settlers.  How  many  prejudices,  so 
deeply  rooted  in  the  country  as  to  seem  ineradicable,  owe  their 
destruction  to  them  !  How  many  harsh  and  uncharitable  feel- 
ings against  Catholics  were  smoothed  away  or  softened  down  by 
their  instrumentality  ! 

Those  men  who,  in  after-life,  remembered  that  they  "  ought 
to  be  Catholics,"  were  not  ready  to  accept,  on  the  word  of  a 
"  minister,"  all  the  absurd  calumnies  spread  against  the  Church 
throughout  those  vast  regions.  They  had  heard,  by  a  kind  of 
tradition,  kept  alive  in  their  families,  of  what  their  ancestors  had 
formerly  suffered,  and  they  at  least  were  not  inclined  to  join  in 
the  universal  denunciation  of  a  creed  which  they  were  conscious 
"  ought  to  be  "  their  own. 

Who  shall  say  whether  it  is  not  the  old  Catholic  blood,  run- 
ning in  the  veins  of  these  children  of  Irish  Catholic  parents, 
which  has  been  mainly  instrumental  in  creating  that  spirit  of 
true  liberality  which  inspires  the  honorable  conduct  of  the  ma- 
jority of  the  American  people,  and  in  which  the  Church  has 
at  all  times  found  her  safety  ? 

It  is  certain  that  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  that 
American  spirit  and  the  atmosphere  of  distrust  pervading  other 
countries,  and  that  the  rapid  spread  of  the  Church  throughout 
the  broad  regions  of  the  Union  has  been  singularly  favored  by 
the  soft  breeze  of  a  liberal  and  kindly  feeling  so  common  to 
those  even  who  are  not  born  within  the  fold.  And  that  the 
children  of  Irish  parents,  themselves  lost  to  the  Church,  have  ex- 
ercised great  influence  from  the  start,  in  that  regard,  cannot, 
we  think,  be  denied. 

But,  perhaps,  too  much  space  has  been  devoted  to  that  first 
emigration  from  Ireland ;  it  is  time  to  come  to  a  more  recent 
period  of  which  there  are  more  certain  and  positive  accounts. 

There  is  no  need  to  speak  of  the  happy  change  effected  in 
the  position  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  America  by  the  Eevolu- 
26 


±02 


EMIGRATION. 


tion  ;  Washington,  in  his  reply  to  the  address  of  the  Catholics 
of  the  country,  has  given  expression  to  the  feelings  of  the  nation 
in  terms  so  well  known  that  they  require  no  comment. 

From  that  date  commences  the  real  history  of  the  Catholic 
Church  in  North  America,  outside  of  the  provinces  originally 
settled  by  the  French  and  Spaniards.  The  influx  of  Irish  immi- 
grants now  attracts  our  chief  attention. 

From  the  year  1800,  when  the  "  Union "  was  effected  be- 
tween England  and  Ireland,  the  number  of  immigrants  increased 
suddenly  and  rapidly,  and  the  situation  of  the  new-comers  on 
their  arrival  was  very  different  from  that  of  their  predecessors. 
They  found  liberty  not  only  proclaimed,  but  established ;  few 
churches  indeed,  but,  such  as  there  were,  known  and  open,  and  a 
bishop  and  clergymen  already  practising  their  ministry. 

Before  entering  upon  the  extent,  nature,  and  effects  of  this 
second  Irish  immigration — which  may  be  studied  from  documents 
existing — it  will  be  well  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  elements  which 
constituted  the  Catholic  body  when  first  organized.  We  are 
concerned,  it  is  true,  with  the  new  element  introduced  by  the 
great  movement  of  which  we  begin  to  speak ;  but  we  are  far 
from  undervaluing  other  sources  of  life,  which  not  only  affected 
the  Church  at  its  birth  in  the  United  States,  but  have  continued 
to  act  upon  her  ever  since  with  more  or  less  of  energy.  The 
reader  should  not  imagine  that,  by  not  speaking  of  them,  we  are 
unjust  or  blind  to  their  efficiency ;  they  simply  lie  without  the 
scope  of  our  plan. 

In  the  North  the  French,  and  in  the  South  the  Spanish  mis- 
sionaries, had  imparted  to  Catholicity  a  vitality  which  could  not 
be  extinguished  ;  but  its  operations  were  almost  entirely  confined 
to  limits  outside  those  which  circumscribe  the  field  of  our  inves- 
tigations. The  French  element,  however,  grew  into  prominence 
even  at  the  outset  within  those  limits,  either  through  the  acquisi- 
tion of  Louisiana,  or  in  consequence  of  the  French  immigration 
during  the  terrible  revolution  of  last  century.  It  is  only  neces- 
sary to  open  the  pages  of  Mr.  R.  H.  Clarke's  recently-published 
"Lives  of  the  American  Bishops,"  to  be  struck  with  the  impor- 
tance of  that  element.  It  may  be  said  that,  for  the  first  twenty- 
five  years  of  the  republic,  French  prelates  and  clergymen,  together 
with  several  American  Marylanders,  were  intrusted  with  the 
care  of  the  infant  Church.  Ireland  seems  to  have  had  scarcely 
any  office  to  fulfil  in  that  great  work,  save  through  the  humble 
exertions  of  a  few  devoted  but  almost  unknown  missionaries ; 
so  that,  when  bishops  of  Irish  birth  were  first  chosen,  they  were 
either  taken  from  Ireland  itself,  as  was  Dr.  England,  Bishop 
Kelly,  of  Richmond,  or  Conwell,  of  Philadelphia,  or  from  the 
monasteries  of  Rome,  as  were  Bishops  Connolly  and  Concanen,  of 
New  York.    Bishop  Egan,  of  Philadelphia,  can  scarcely  be  called 


EMIGRATION. 


403 


an  exception,  as  he  had  only  spent  a  very  few  years  in  this  coun- 
try when  he  was  elevated  to  the  episcopal  dignity.  The  German 
element  showed  itself  only  in  Pennsylvania. 

It  was  under  circumstances  such  as  these  that  that  stream  of 
desolate  people  began  to  flow,  spreading  gradually  through  im- 
mense regions,  and  bringing  with  it  only  its  unconquerable  faith. 

From  the  "  mustard-seed  "  a  noble  tree  was  to  spring  up  ; 
but  as  yet  it  was  only  a  weak  sapling.  In  1785,  Bishop  Carroll 
made  an  estimate  of  the  Catholic  population  of  the  States  :  "  In 
Maryland,  seventeen  thousand  ;  in  Pennsylvania,  over  seven  thou- 
sand ;  and,  as  far  as  information  could  be  obtained,  in  other 
States,  about  fifteen  hundred."  New  York  City  could  not  yet 
boast  of  a  hundred  Catholics. 

Like  all  things  durable  and  mighty,  the  first  swelling  of  that 
great  wave  was  slow  and  silent,  and  scarcely  perceptible,  until 
little  by  little  the  ripple  spread  over  the  vast  ocean. 

The  first  apparent  causes  have  been  well  expressed  by  T.  D. 
McGee,  in  his  "  Irish  Settlers :  "  "  The  breaking  out  of  the  French 
War  in  1793,  and  the  degrading  legislative  Union  of  1800,  had 
deprived  many  of  bread,  and  all  of  liberty  at  home,  and  made 
the  mechanical  as  well  as  the  agricultural  class  embark  to  cross 
the  Atlantic. 

"  Hitherto  the  Irish  had  colonized,  sowed  and  reaped,  fought, 
spoken,  and  legislated  in  the  JSTew  World,  if  not  always  in  pro- 
portion to  their  numbers,  yet  always  to  the  measure  of  their  edu- 
cational resources.  Now  they  are  about  to  plant  a  new  emblem 
— the  Cross — and  a  new  institution — the  Church — throughout 
the  American  Continent.  For,  the  faith  of  their  fathers  they  did 
not  leave  behind  them  ;  nay,  rather,  wheresoever  six  Irish  roof- 
trees  rise,  there  you  will  find  the  cross  of  Christ  reared  over  all, 
and  Celtic  piety  and  Celtic  enthusiasm,  all  sighs  and  tears,  kneel- 
ing before  it." 

Let  us  look  at  a  few  particular  signs  of  the  coming  of  this 
great  wave  in  its  first  scarcely  perceptible  movement, 

"  John  Timon  was  born  at  Conewago,  Pennsylvania,  Febru- 
ary 12,  1797,  and  baptized  on  the  17th  of  the  same  month  ;  his 
parents,  James  Timon  and  Margaret  Leddy,  had  quite  recently 
arrived  in  this  country  from  Ireland,  and  were  from  Belturbet, 
County  Cavan.  A  family  of  ten  children,  of  whom  John  was 
the  second  son,  blessed  the  Catholic  household  of  these  pious 
parents." — {Lives  of  American  Bishops.) 

"  Francis  Xavier  Gartland  was  born  in  Dublin,  Ireland,  in 
1805 ;  he  came  to  America  while  yet  a  child,  and  made  his 
studies  at  Mount  St.  Mary's,  Emmettsburg." — (Ibid.) 

"  John  B.  Fitzpatrick  was  born  in  Boston,  November  1, 
1812.  His  parents  emigrated  from  Ireland,  and  settled  in  Bos- 
ton in  1805."— (Ibid.) 


EMIGRATION. 


What  did  the  parents  of  the  future  bishop  find  on  their  arri- 
val at  Boston  ?    In  the  year  previous,  the  first  Catholic  congre- 

fation  was  assembled  in  that  city  by  the  Abbe  La  Poitre,  a 
rench  navy-chaplain,  who  had  remained  in  America  after  the 
departure  of  the  French  fleet,  which  rendered  such  powerful  as- 
sistance in  the  struggle  for  American  independence.  In  1808, 
four  years  before  the  birth  of  him  who  was  destined  to  wear  the 
mitre,  the  Catholics  had  obtained  the  old  "  French  Church "  in 
School  Street,  which  was  probably  a  Calvinist  meeting-house. 

Another  wavelet  of  a  precious  kind  was  the  following  : 
"  Bishop  Lanigan  was  meditating "  (in  Ireland)  "  the  establish- 
ment of  a  religious  community  in  the  city  of  Kilkenny,  and  de- 
signed Miss  Alice  Lalor  for  one  of  its  future  members.  But,  in 
1797,  her  parents  emigrated  from  Ireland  and  settled  in  Amer- 
ica, and  she  felt  it  to  be  her  duty  ....  to  accompany  them. 
But  she  promised  the  bishop  to  return  in  two  years.  On  arriv- 
ing at  Philadelphia,  she  became  acquainted  with  the  Reverend 
Leonard  Keale.  .  .  .  Feeling  convinced  that  it  was  not  the  de- 
sign of  Providence  that  she  should  abandon  America  for  Ireland, 
Father  Xeale  released  her  from  her  promise  to  return  to  Kil- 
kenny, in  order  that  she  might  become  his  cooperator  in  the 
foundation  of  a  religious  order  in  the  United  States  (the  Visita- 
tion Kuns)." — (Ibid.) 

Already  was  the  young  church  robbing  the  old  of  some  of  its 
best  members,  who  were  to  give  some  weight  to  the  Irish  ele- 
ment in  this  country. 

"  George  A.  Carrell  was  born  at  Philadelphia.  .  .  .  He  was 
the  seventh  child  of  his  Irish  parents,  and  the  house  they  occu- 
pied, and  in  which  he  was  born,  was  the  old  mansion  of  William 
Penn,  at  the  corner  of  Market  Street  and  Letitia  Court." — 
{ibid.) 

Two  short  observations  naturally  present  themselves  here. 
Philadelphia  is  the  city  oftenest  mentioned  whenever  foreigners 
are  spoken  of  as  landing  in  Xorth  America  at  that  time.  It  was 
then  the  great  harbor  of  the  country,  !NTew  York  not  having  at- 
tained the  preeminence  she  now  enjoys.  Hence,  the  Church 
counted  seven  thousand  children  in  Pennsylvania,  but  very  few 
north  of  that  city.  Thither  came  the  German  Catholics,  also,  in 
great  numbers  to  spread  themselves  chiefly  West  and  South. 
Such  was  the  direction  then  taken  by  the  Catholic  wave. 

Our  second  remark  only  concerns  the  house  in  which  he  who 
became  Bishop  Carrell  was  born.  It  seemed  only  fitting  that  an 
Irish  Catholic  family  should  thus  early  take  possession  of  the 
very  dwelling-place  of  the  founder  of  the  colony,  as  the  Catholic 
Church  was  destined,  through  the  Irish  element  chiefly,  to  sup- 
plant and  outlive  the  little  church  of  the  "  Friends." 

All  the  facts,  however,  just  quoted  are  exceptional,  and  re- 


EMIGRATION. 


405 


gard  only  the  select  few.  "What  became  of  the  mass,  mean- 
while i  As  usual,  history  for  the  most  part  is  silent  with  regard 
to  it.  A  very  few  words  constitute  the  only  record  which  can 
afford  us  a  glimpse  of  the  real  situation  of  the  vast  majority  of 
those  poor,  friendless,  obscure  immigrants,  on  whom,  neverthe- 
less, the  great  hopes  of  the  future  were  built. 

TTe  have,  happily,  some  means  left  us  of  forming  an  opinion  ; 
and  it  will  be  seen  that  their  situation  was  much  the  same  as 
that  of  their  earlier  compatriots.  For  instance,  in  the  "  Lives  of 
American  Bishops  93  we  read  the  following  startling  story  : 

"  The  Abbe  Cheverus  very  frequently  made  long  journeys  to 
convey  the  consolations  of  religion  or  perform  acts  of  charity. 
About  this  time  (1803)  he  received  a  letter  from  two  young  Irish 
Catholics  confined  in  Northampton  prison,  who  had  been  con- 
demned to  death  without  just  cause,  as  was  almost  universally 
believed,  imploring  him  to  come  to  them  and  prepare  them  for 
their  sad  and  cruel  fate.  He  hastened  to  their  spiritual  relief, 
and  inspired  them  with  the  most  heroic  sentiments  and  disposi- 
tions, which  they  persevered  in  to  the  last  fatal  moment  of  their 
execution.  According  to  custom,  the  prisoners  were  carried  to 
the  nearest  church,  to  hear  a  sermon  preached  immediately  be- 
fore their  execution ;  several  Protestant  ministers  presented 
themselves  to  preach  the  sermon  ;  but  the  Abbe  Cheverus 
claimed  the  right  to  perform  that  duty,  as  the  choice  of  the  pris- 
oners themselves,  and,  after  much  difficulty,  he  was  allowed  to 
ascend  the  pulpit.  His  sermon  struck  all  present  with  astonish- 
ment, awe,  and  admiration." 

Here,  in  1803^  we  have  almost  a  repetition  of  the  death  of 
the  poor  woman  Glover ;  and,  had  it  not  been  for  the  high 
character  of  the  admirable  man  who  hastened  to  their  assistance, 
those  two  young  Irish  Catholics  would  have  had  for  their  only 
religious  preparation  before  death  a  sermon  from  one  or  more 
Protestant  ministers  ;  and,  as  the  great  and  good  Cheverus  could 
not  be  everywhere  in  New  England,  there  is  little  doubt  but 
that  such  was  the  fate  of  more  than  one  of  the  newly-arrived 
immigrants. 

In  1S00  and  the  following  vears  a  comparatively  large  num- 
ber of  Irishmen  landed  at  Sew  York,  and  the  future  terrible 
scourge  of  their  race,  ship-fever,  soon  broke  out  among  them. 
Dr.  Bailey,  the  father  of  Mrs.  Seton,  was  Health  Physician  to  the 
port  of  !New  York  at  the  time,  and  he  allowed  his  daughter  to 
visit  and  do  good  among  them.  She  was  deeply  impressed  by 
the  religious  demeanor  oi  the  Irish  just  landed.  The  Bev.  Dr. 
"White  relates  in  her  "  Life  :  "  "  6  The  first  thing,'  she  said,  £  the 
poor  people  did  when  they  got  their  tents  was  to  assemble  on  the 
grass,  and  all,  kneeling,  adore  our  Master  for  his  mercy ;  and 
every  morning  sun  finds  them  repeating  their  praises.'    In  a 


±06 


EMIGRATION. 


letter  to  her  sister-in-law  she  describes  their  sufferings  under  the 
'  plague  '  in  the  following  golden  words  : 

"  '  Rebecca,  I  cannot  sleep  ;  the  dying  and  the  dead  possess 
my  mind — babies  expiring  at  the  empty  breast  of  their  mother. 
And  this  is  not  fancy,  but  the  scene  that  surrounds  me.  Father 
says  that  such  was  never  known  before  ;  that  there  are  actually 
twelve  children  that  must  die  from  mere  want  of  sustenance, 
unable  to  take  more  than  the  breast,  and  from  the  wretchedness 
of  their  parents  deprived  of  it,  as  they  have  laid  ill  for  many 
days  in  the  ship,  without  food,  air,  or  changing.  Merciful 
Father !  Oh,  how  readily  would  I  give  them  each  a  turn  of 
my  child's  treasure,  if  in  my  choice  !  But,  Rebecca,  they  have  a 
provider  in  heaven,  who  will  soothe  the  pangs  of  the  suffering 
innocent.'  " 

When  she  wrote  the  above,  Mrs.  Seton  was  not  yet  professedly 
a  Catholic  ;  but  how  truly  animated  with  the  spirit  of  the  Church 
of  Christ !  Happy  would  the  poor  immigrants  have  been  had 
they  only  met  with  Protestants  of  her  stamp  on  landing,  and  of 
her  father's,  who,  although  he  prevented  her  becoming  foster- 
mother  to  those  poor  children,  as  her  first  duty  regarded  her 
own  child,  died  himself,  a  victim  to  his  charity  toward  their 
parents,  contracting,  in  the  fulfilment  of  his  office,  the  fever 
they  had  brought  with  them,  which  he  was  striving  to  allay  ! 

The  following  fact,  which  will  conclude  this  portion  of  our 
inquiry,  happened  a  little  later,  but,  on  that  very  account,  will 
serve  as  a  connecting  link  with  the  considerations  which  are  to 
follow,  and  will  open  our  eyes  to  the  real  position  of  that  already 
swelling  mass  of  immigrants. 

"  During  the  year  1823,  Bishop  Connolly  (of  New  York) 
made  the  visitation  of  his  entire  diocese.  .  .  .  He  extended  his 
journey  along  the  route  of  the  Erie  Canal,  which  was  commenced 
in  1819,  where  large  numbers  of  Irish  laborers  had  been  attract- 
ed, and  among  whom  the  bishop  labored  with  indefatigable 
zeal."  At  that  time  the  clergy  of  the  whole  diocese  consisted  of 
eight  priests  with  their  bishop. 

At  last  we  find  the  "Irish  people"  at  work.  The  spectacle 
is  full  of  sadness  ;  and  the  only  emotion  which  can  fill  the  heart 
is  one  of  deep  pity.  In  that  vast  wilderness  of  the  West,  for 
such  it  then  was,  along  public  works  extending  hundreds  of 
miles,  large  gangs  of  men — such  is  the  expression  we  are  com- 
pelled to  use — are  hard  at  work  along  that  dreary  Mohawk  River ; 
blasting  rocks,  digging  in  the  hard  clay,  uprooting  trees,  clearing 
the  ground  of  briars,  tangled  bushes,  and  the  vast  quantity  of 
debris  of  animal  and  vegetable  matter  accumulated  during  cen- 
turies.  This  was  the  work  which  "  attracted  "  large  numbers  of 
Irish  laborers.  They  had  left  their  country,  crossed  the  ocean 
under  circumstances  that  should  come  under  our  notice,  and 


EMIGRATION. 


407 


landed  on  these  (at  that  time)  inhospitable  shores,  to  find  work  ; 
and  they  found  the  occupation  just  mentioned.  We  can  picture 
the  "  shanties  "  in  which  they  lived,  the  harpies  who  thrived  on 
them,  the  innumerable  extortions  to  which  they  were  subjected. 
Bearing  in  mind  that,  in  the  immense  State  of  New  York  and  in 
one-half  of  New  Jersey,  there  were  just  eight  priests  with  their 
bishop,  we  may  form  some  idea  of  the  way  in  which  they  lived 
and  died. 

How  they  must  have  blessed  this  bishop,  who  had  left  Rome, 
his  second  country,  and  the  noble  associations  which  surrounded 
him  in  the  Eternal  City,  to  come  to  the  succor  of  his  unfortunate 
countrymen  scattered  away  in  a  New  World  !  And  well  did  he 
deserve  that  blessing ! 

But  his  passage  along  the  Erie  Canal  could  be  nothing  more 
than  a  veritable  passage — a  transient  sojourn  of  a  few  days  or 
weeks  at  most.  What  became  of  those  gangs  of  men  after,  what 
had  happened  to  them  before,  no  one  has  said,  no  one  has  told 
us,  no  one  now  can  ascertain  ;  we  are  only  left  to  conjecture,  and 
the  spectacle,  as  we  said,  is  too  sad  to  dwell  upon. 

But,  hidden  within  this  melancholy  view,  lies  a  great  and 
glorious  fact.  It  was  the  beginning  of  an  "  apostolic  mission  " 
on  the  part  of  a  whole  people,  a  mission  which  will  'form  one  of 
the  most  moving  and  significant  pages  of  the  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory of  the  nineteenth  century.  Every  Christian  knows  that 
apostolic  work  is  rough  work ;  the  brunt  of  the  battle  must  be 
borne  by  the  earliest  in  the  field,  that  it  may  be  said  of  their 
successors  in  the  words  of  the  Gospel :  "  Vos  in  labores  eorum 
introistisP 

Such  being  the  hard  lot  of  the  immigrants  in  the  interior  of 
the  country,  was  that  of  those  who  remained  in  the  cities  much 
more  enviable  ?  On  this  point  we  are  enabled  to  judge,  at  least 
as  regards  New  York.  In  a  letter  written  by  Bishop  Dubois, 
and  published  in  vol.  viii.  of  the  "  Annals  of  the  Propagation  of 
the  Faith,"  we  meet  with  the  following  exhaustive  description  : 

"  At  the  beginning  of  this  century,  the  newly-arrived  immi- 
grants were  employed  as  day-laborers,  servants,  journeymen, 
clerks,  and  shopmen.  Now,  the  condition  of  this  class  here  is 
precisely  the  same  as  its  condition  in  England ;  it  is  entirely  de- 
pendent upon  the  will  of  the  trader:  not  because  by  law  are 
they  forced  thereto,  but  because  the  rich  alone,  being  able  to  ad- 
vance the  capital  necessary  for  factories,  steam-engines,  and 
workshops,  the  poor  are  obliged  to  work  for  them  upon  the  mas- 
ters5 own  conditions.  These  conditions,  in  the  case  of  servants 
especially,  sometimes  degenerate  into  tyranny  ;  they  are  frequent- 
ly forced  to  work  on  Sundays,  permission  to  hear  even  a  low 
mass  being  refused  them ;  they  are  obliged  betimes  to  assist  at 
the  prayers  of  the  sect  to  which  their  masters  belong,  and  they 


±03 


EMIGRATION. 


have  no  other  alternative  than  either  to  do  violence  to  their  con  - 
science, or  lose  their  place  at  the  risk  of  not  finding  another.  Add 
to  this  the  insults,  the  calumnies  against  Catholics,  which  they 
are  daily  forced  to  hear — a  hind  of  persecution  at  the  hands  of 
their  masters,  who  do  every  thing  to  turn  them  away  from  their 
religion  ;  consider  the  dangers  to  which  are  exposed  numbers  of 
orphans  who  lose  their  fathers  almost  immediately  upon  landing  ; 
add  to  this  the  want  of  spiritual  succor,  a  necessary  consequence 
of  the  scarcity  of  missionaries ;  and  you  will  have  a  feeble  idea 
of  the  obstacles  of  every  kind  which  we  have  to  surmount.  .  .  . 
Supposing  an  immigrant,  the  father  of  a  family,  to  die,  the  widow 
and  orphans  have  no  other  resources  but  public  charity ;  and  if 
a  home  is  found  for  the  children,  it  is  nearly  always  among  Prot- 
estants,  who  do  every  thing  in  their  power  to  undermine  their 
faith." 

This  picture  of  immigrant-life  in  New  York  was  certainly 
repeated  through  all  the  other  large  cities.  Under  such  a  combi- 
nation of  adverse  circumstances  it  is  most  probable  that  men  and 
women  of  any  other  nation  would  have  entirely  lost  their  laith. 
Such,  then,  was  the  dreary  prospect  for  the  new-comers.  Who 
at  that  time  would  have  dared  hope  to  witness  the  consoling 
spectacle  which  followed  soon  after  f  To  begin  with  the  dawn  of 
that  bright  day,  we  must  pass  on  to  a  new  period  of  immigra- 
tion, commencing  in  1815  or  shortly  after,  and  continuing  down 
to  the  "  exodus  "  of  1846. 

It  may  be  well,  before  entering  upon  it,  to  look  at  the  causes 
which  drove  so  many  to  leave  the  shores  of  Ireland.  From  the 
vear  1815  the  number  of  immigrants  increased  considerably  and 
kept  on  a  steady  increase  until  it  swelled  to  the  startling  propor- 
tions of  1850  and  the  following:  years. 

It  is  easy  to  demonstrate  that  the  causes  were  twofold :  1. 
The  wretched  state  of  the  vast  majority  of  the  Irish  at  the  best 
of  times.  2.  The  periodical  famines  which  have  regularly  visited 
the  island  since  the  beginning  of  last  century.  At  any  time  it 
was  in  the  power  of  the  English  to  remedy  both  causes  by  effect- 
ing certain  changes  in  the  existing  laws. 

The  first  of  these  is  evidently  the  necessary  result  of  the 
penal  laws  which  had  converted  the  Irish,  designedly  and  with 
the  wilful  intent  of  the  legislators,  into  a  nation  of  paupers. 
The  second  can  onlv  be  the  result  of  the  laws  affecting  the  ten- 
ure  of  land  and  the  trade  and  manufactures  of  the  country. 

To  attribute  the  pauperism  which  now  seems  a  part  and  par- 
cel of  the  Irish  nation  while  in  their  own  country  to  the  indo- 
lence and  want  of  foresight  on  the  part  of  the  natives  themselves, 
as  it  is  a  fashion  with  English  writers  to  do,  is  wilfully  to  close 
the  eyes  to  two  very  important  things :  their  past  history  in  their 
own  land,  and  their  present  history  outside  of  it. 


EMIGRATION. 


409 


As  to  their  past  history  in  their  own  land,  it  is  an  established 
fact  that  pauperism  was  unknown  in  the  island,  until  Protestant 
legislators  introduced  it  by  their  confiscations  and  laws  with  the 
manifest  intent  of  destroying,  rooting  out,  or  driving  away  the 
race.  What  has  been  previously  stated  on  this  point  cannot  be 
gainsaid ;  and  it  suffices  for  the  vindication  of  a  falsely-accused 
people.  There  might  be  some  hope  for  a  speedier  and  happier 
solution  of  the  vexed  "  Irish  difficulty "  did  the  grandsons  of 
those  who  wrought  the  evil  only  honestly  acknowledge  the  faults 
of  their  ancestors — the  least  that  might  be  expected  of  them ; 
and  it  would  not  be  too  much  to  imagine  them  honest  enough  to 
repair  those  faults  in  these  days  of  severe  reckoning  and  self- 
scrutiny. 

As  to  the  present  history  of  the  race  outside  their  own  land, 
now  that  it  has  been  scattered,  by  these  grievous  calamities,  all 
over  the  world,  whatever  characteristics  its  children  may  present, 
indolence  and  want  of  foresight  can  scarcely  be  numbered  among 
them,  in  view  of  the  success  which  attends  their  march  every- 
where. And  if  these  qualities  would  seem  to  be  rooted  in  the 
native  soil,  they  are  only  "importations"  like  the  men  who  fast- 
ened them  there,  and  due  only  to  the  cramped  position  in  which 
their  legislators  so  carefully  confined  them.  Where  should  there 
be  energy,  when  every  motive  that  could  urge  it  has  been  taken 
away?  How  is  it  possible  to  improve  their  condition,  when 
every  improvement  only  imposes  an  additional  burden  upon 
them  in  the  shape  of  rack-rent  or  eviction  % 

In  his  work  on  "  The  Social  Condition  of  the  People,"  Mr. 
Kay  quotes  from  the  Edinburgh  Review  of  January,  1850,  the 
evidence  on  this  point  given  by  English,  German,  and  Polish 
witnesses  before  the  Committee  of  Emigration,  and  the  proofs 
gathered  from  every  source  as  to  the  rapid  improvement  of  the 
Irish  emigrant,  wherever  he  goes,  are  certainly  convincing. 

As  for  the  foelish  (for  it  is  nothing  else,  unless  it  be  wicked) 
assertion  that  those  frightful  famines  referred  to  are  to  be  at- 
tributed to  the  sufferers  themselves,  it  is  only  necessary  to  say  in 
refutation  that  in  the  very  years  when  thousands  were  being 
swept  away  daily  by  their  ravages  in  Ireland — 1846  and  1S47 — 
the  harbors  of  the  island  were  filled  with  English  vessels,  loaded 
with  cargoes  of  provisions  of  every  kind  to  be  transported  to 
England  in  order  to  pay  the  rents  due  to  absentee  landlords : 
and  all  these  provisions  were  the  product  of  the  famine-stricken 
land,  won  by  the  toil  of  the  famine-stricken  nation.  This  has 
invariably  been  the  case  when  famine  has  swept  over  the 
island:  the  island's  riches  were  in  her  harbors,  stored  in  the 
holds  of  foreign  vessels,  to  be  carried  away  and  converted  into 
money  that  these  noble  Anglo-Irish  landlords  might  be  enabled 
to  "  sustain  "  life 


410 


EMIGRATION. 


Others  have  ascribed  these  periodical  visitations  to  a  surplus 
population ;  but,  without  entering  into  a  discussion  on  the  sub- 
ject, Sir  Robert  Kane,  in  his  "  Industrial  Resources  of  Ireland," 
shows  that,  taking  the  island  in  her  present  state  and  under  the 
existing  system  of  cultivation,  she  could  support  with  ease  eigh- 
teen million  inhabitants ;  that,  if  the  best  methods  of  farming 
were  generally  adopted,  the  soil,  by  double  and  even  triple  crops, 
could  feed  without  difficulty,  not  only  twenty-five  million,  the 
figure  stated  by  Mr.  Gustave  de  Beaumont,  a  French  publicist  of 
eminence,  but  as  many  as  from  thirty  to  thirty-five  million  in- 
habitants. 

But,  as  the  same  judicious  writer  observes,  "the  enormous 
quantity  of  cattle  annually  shipped  off  from  Ireland  to  England 
would,  in  that  case,  be  consumed  in  the  country  which  j^roduces 
it." 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  pretended  surplus  population 
of  Ireland  is,  as  Sir  Robert  Kane  says,  a  piece  of  pure  imagina- 
tion, perfectly  ideal,  and  that  it  is  its  unequal  and  not  its  aggre- 
gate amount  which  is  to  be  deplored. 

But  no  one  has  presented  the  question  more  clearly  and  solved 
it  more  precisely  than  Mr.  Gustave  de  Beaumont  in  his  admirable 
work  on  Ireland,  from  which  we  quote  one  or  two  telling  passages, 
as  given  in  Father  Perraud's  "  Ireland  under  English  Rule." 

"  The  celebrated  French  publicist,  who  was  the  first  to  pre- 
sent to  us  (in  France)  a  complete  picture  of  the  condition  of 
Ireland,  examining  in  1829  how  emigration  might  or  might  not 
do  away  with  all  the  misery  he  had  witnessed,  proposed  to  him- 
self the  following  questions : 

"  L  To  what  extent  ought  emigration  to  be  carried,  in  order 
to  bring  about  a  material  change  in  the  general  state  of  Ire- 
land ?  namely,  by  taking  away  the  pretended  surplus  population. 

4<  II.  Would  it  be  possible  to  carry  it  out  to  the  proposed  ex- 
tent ? 

"  III.  Supposing  it  practicable,  would  it  be  a  radical  and  final 
solution  of  existing  difficulties  ? 

"  The  advocates  of  emigration  replied  to  the  first  question  by 
estimating  at  a  minimum  of  two  million  the  number  of  individ- 
uals who  would  have  to  leave  Ireland,  at  one  time,  in  order  to 
produce  there  that  kind  of  vacuum  which  would  improve  the 
conditions  of  labor  and  the  existence  of  the  rest  of  the  agricul- 
tural population. 

"  Upon  these  data  the  solution  of  the  second  question  was 
easy.  It  was  by  no  means  difficult  to  prove  that  the  system  was 
impracticable  on  so  large  a  scale ;  impracticable  on  account  of 
the  insufficiency  of  the  means  of  transport  at  disposal ;  impractica- 
ble on  account  of  the  enormous  sums  required  to  carry  it  out. 

"  In  fact,  supposing  an  emigrant-ship  to  carry  a  thousand  pas- 


EMIGRATION. 


411 


sengers — a  very  high  figure — two  thousand  vessels  would  be  re- 
quired to  attain  the  end  in  view,  namely,  the  sudden  and  univer- 
sal emigration  of  the  whole  so-called  surplus  population.  That 
is  to  say,  the  whole  merchant  navy  of  Great  Britain  would  have 
to  be  drawn  off  from  the  commerce  of  the  world,  and  chartered 
for  the  execution  of  this  very  chimerical  plan.  Where  was  the 
sum  required  for  the  most  necessary  expenses  and  urgent  wants 
of  two  million  passengers  to  be  got  ?  And  what  country  in  the 
world  would  have  submitted  to  a  monster  invasion  like  those  of 
barbarous  times  ?  Unless,  indeed,  these  two  million  individuals 
were  beforehand  coldly  devoted  to  death  by  hunger,  was  there  a 
single  country  in  which  it  could  be  hoped  they  would  immedi- 
ately find  work  or  the  means  of  subsistence  ?  " 

All  those  impossibilities,  genuine  indeed  and  at  the  time, 
1829,  of  unforeseen  solution,  became,  under  Providence,  possible 
by  extending  the  period  of  transportation  from  one  year  to 
twenty ;  so  that,  instead  of  two,  in  reality  three  million  and  a 
half  were  thus  transported. 

But,  where  M.  de  Beaumont  displayed  all  his  talent  for  appre- 
ciation and  keen  reasoning  was,  when  he  came  to  consider  the 
third  and  most  embarrassing  question  of  all.  Was  it  certain 
that,  the  system  of  renting  and  cultivating  land  always  remain- 
ing the  same,  emigration  would  suffice  to  heal  those  inveterate 
sores,  and  effect,  in  conformity  with  the  wishes  of  its  partisans, 
a  social  transformation  ? 

On  this  point,  he  showed,  in  a  manner  admitting  of  no  reply, 
that  the  emigration  of  a  third  or  even  of  half  the  population 
would  not  radically  put  an  end  to  the  misery  of  the  country. 
The  difficulty  with  Ireland  does  not  consist  in  being  unable  to 
produce  wherewith  to  feed  her  population  ;  it  lies  in  the  manner 
in  which  landed  property  is  managed,  a  system  which  no  amount 
of  emigration  can  possibly  modify  ;  for,  "  if  one  of  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  the  landlord  be  that  the  fanner  should  gain  by  tilling 
no  more  than  is  strictly  necessary  to  support  him — if,  in  addition, 
this  principle  is,  as  a  general  rule,  rigidly  followed  out,  and  all 
economical  means  of  living  resorted  to  by  the  farmer  necessarily 
induce  a  rise  in  the  rent — what,  upon  this  supposition  (of  the  sad 
reality  of  which  every  one  knowing  Ireland  is  perfectly  con- 
scious), can  be  the  consequence  of  a  decrease  of  population  ?  " 

Always  obliged  to  live  as  sparingly  as  possible,  in  order  to 
escape  a  rise  in  the  rent,  and  forced  to  undergo  daily  privations, 
m  order  to  meet  his  engagements,  how  is  the  Irish  farmer  to  gain 
by  the  departure  of  his  neighbor  ?  "  Thus,  after  millions  of  Irish- 
men have  disappeared,  the  fate  of  the  population  which  remains 
is  in  no  wise  changed  ;  it  will  forever  be  equally  wretched." 

Then,  glancing  at  the  past,  making  a  sad  enumeration  of 
Ireland's  losses  during  the  last  three  centuries,  and  evoking  from 


412 


EMIGRATION. 


these  too  eloquent  figures  the  accents  of  a  touching  eloquence, 
the  writer  asks  himself  how  far  so  much  bloodshed,  such  armies 
of  individuals,  stricken  down  by  death,  or  hurried  out  of  the 
country  by  transportation — so  many  families  extinct,  and  the 
like — had  contributed  to  restore  and  save  Ireland  ? 

"  Open  the  annals  of  Ireland,  and  see  the  small  amount  of 
influence  which  all  those  violent  enterprises  and  all  those  ex- 
traordinary accidental  causes  of  depopulation  have  had  upon  the 
social  state  of  the  country.  Calculate  the  number  of  souls  that 
perished  during  the  religious  wars  ;  count  the  thousands  of 
Irishmen  that  perished  under  the  sword  of  Cromwell ;  to  all  that 
the  victor  massacred  add  the  myriads  that  he  transported  ;  think 
of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  who  sank  under  famine,  the  number 
of  whom  exceeded  in  one  year,  1741,  forty  thousand  ;  do  not  over- 
look the  formerly  considerable  number  who  yearly  died  by  the 
hand  of  the  executioner ;  in  fine,  to  this  add  the  twenty-five  or 
thirty  thousand  individuals  who  emigrate  from  the  country 
every  year  "  (this  was  written  before  1830)  ;  "  and,  having  laid 
down  these  facts,  you  look  for  the  consequences  :  when,  in  the 
midst  of  these  different  crises,  you  see  Ireland  always  the  same, 
always  equally  wretched,  always  crammed  with  paupers,  always 
bearing  about  with  her  the  same  hideous  and  deep  wounds,  you 
will  then  recognize  that  the  miseries  of  Ireland  do  not  arise 
from  the  number  of  her  inhabitants  ;  you  will  conclude  that  it  is 
the  nature  of  her  social  condition  to  generate  unmitigated  indi- 
gence and  infinite  distress ;  that,  supposing  millions  of  poor 
swept  out  of  her  by  a  stroke  of  magic,  others  would  be  seen  rising 
up  in  abundance  out  of  a  well-spring  of  misery,  which  in  Ireland 
never  dries  up  ;  and  that  the  fault  does  not  lie  in  the  number  of 
her  population,  but  in  the  institutions  in  force  in  the  country." 

The  celebrated  French  writer  had  certainly  pointed  out  what 
were  the  real  causes  of  the  distress  in  Ireland.  He  had  shown 
how  false  were  the  pretended  causes  then  assigned  for  it  by 
Englishmen  ;  he  touched  the  key-note — the  land  tenure ;  and, 
as  a  well-wisher  to  Ireland,  deprecating  any  new  calamities,  he 
was  firmly  opposed  to  those  various  fancy  projects  of  emigration 
en  masse,  suggested  by  numerous  British  writers,  many  of  whom, 
such  as  the  editors  of  the  London  Times \  were  induced  to  pro- 
mulgate them  by  their  deep  hatred  for  the  old  race,  which  led 
them  to  represent  under  a  modern  garb  the  old  Norman  and 
Puritan  philanthropic  desires  of  rooting  out  and  sweeping  off  the 
Irish  from  the  land. 

The  projects  of  emigration,  therefore,  were  most  eagerly  ad- 
vanced by  the  enemies  of  the  Irish,  their  real  friends  being,  on 
the  whole,  opposed  to  the  movement  at  the  time.  But,  the  true 
causes  of  Irish  misery  being  either  unseen  or  unappreciated,  or, 
if  known,  studiously  fostered,  with  a  view  of  bringing  about  the 


EMIGRATION. 


one  aim  which  ran  all  through  the  English  policy,  of  emptying 
the  island  and  destroying  the  race,  eventually  it  did  actually  be- 
come a  dire  necessity  for  the  people  to  fly  ;  and  therefore,  from 
1815  to  1815,  the  wave  of  emigration  began  to  rise  fast,  and  go 
on  swelling  in  volume  and  widening  in  extent  from  year  to  year. 
Midway  between  the  two  extreme  points,  about  1830,  it  amount- 
ed to  between  twenty-five  and  thirty  thousand.  M.  de  Beaumont 
could  not  see  how  two  millions  could  be  transported  at  once. 
Nor  were  they.  But  he  did  not  foresee  that  in  the  twenty  years 
succeeding  that  in  which  he  wrote  more  than  three  millions  and 
a  half  would  actually  be  shipped  from  the  island ;  and  all  the 
difficulties  that  he  anticipated — the  number  of  ships  requisite, 
the  immense  amount  of  money  needed,  the  countries  where  such 
numbers  might  be  received — were  furnished  by  Providence  for 
the  spread  of  the  Irish  in  many  lands.  But  these  considerations 
can  only  be  briefly  touched  upon  here  ;  they  will  form  the  inter- 
esting subject  of  the  next  chapter.  "What  we  have  now  to  con- 
sider is  the  commencement  of  the  great  exodus,  confined  so  far 
to  Canada  and  the  United  States,  but  already  working  wonders 
over  the  vast  stretch  of  country  which  spreads  away  between  the 
St.  Lawrence  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

According  to  the  official  records  of  emigration  from  the 
"United  Kingdom,"  from  1815  to  1860  inclusive,  we  find  that, 
in  general,  the  greater  number  emigrated  to  Canada  up  to  1839  ; 
from  that  epoch,  but  chiefly  after  1845,  the  greater  number  went 
directly  to  the  United  States.  Let  us  first  look  for  a  reason  for 
this  change  of  destination,  and  afterward  for  its  result. 

Homer,  wiser  than  many  modern  philosophers,  tells  us  that 
"  there  are  beings  which  have  a  certain  name  among  men  and  an- 
other quite  different  among  the  gods."  What  is  true  of  names, 
is  true  likewise  of  what  they  represent,  motives  and  things  in 
general.  Men  often  assign  to  actions  motives  far  different  from 
those  known  to  God  ;  and,  in  like  manner,  the  motives  of  men, 
visibly  impelled  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  are  often  far  beyond  the 
comprehension  of  "  philosophers."  We  are  far  from  presuming 
to  dive  into  the  divine  thoughts  with  the  certainty  of  bringing 
to  the  surface  what  lies  hidden  in  their  mysterious  depths  ;  but 
every  Christian  should  endeavor  humbly  to  penetrate  them,  and 
modestly  set  forth  what  he  gathers  from  them. 

What  object  can  be  assigned  for  the  Irish  emigrating  in  such 
large  numbers  to  Canada  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  from  1815 
to  1840  ?  It  cannot  be  because  Canada  is,  as  it  then  was,  a 
British  colony :  the  English  Emigration  Commissioners  had  the 
honesty  to  confess,  later  on,  that  the  rush  to  the  United  States 
was  in  consequence  of  their  desire  to  avoid  dwelling  under  the 
English  flag.  It  was  not  because,  in  Canada,  a  greater  facility 
opened  up  for  obtaining  good  land ;  for,  in  Lower  Canada, 


4:14 


EMIGRATION. 


where  they  tarried  for  a  long  time,  the  land  was  already  occupied 
by  French-Canadians,  and,  in  that  severe  climate,  the  soil  is  not 
over-productive.  It  cannot  have  been  the  facility  for  transporta- 
tion— during  about  six  months  of  every  year,  the  mouth  of  the 
St.  Lawrence  is  closed  to  ships,  and  travel  through  a  frozen  land 
is  not  the  most  desirable  thing,  particularly  to  homeless  and 
moneyless  immigrants.  Last  of  all,  it  was  not  the  similarity  of 
climate  and  language  with  those  of  their  own  island.  What, 
then,  can  it  have  been  % 

In  our  own  opinion,  the  human  motive  of  the  Irish  can  have 
been  no  other  than  a  religious  one ;  in  the  Divine  mind,  the 
motive  was  of  a  still  higher  and  more  merciful  character.  The 
Irish  had  heard,  from  the  few  of  their  countrymen  who  had 
already  emigrated  to  the  United  States,  of  the  great  difficulty 
they  experienced  in  practising  their  religion.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  knew  that,  throughout  Lower  Canada,  there  was  not 
a  village  without  its  Catholic  church  and  priest,  and  that  Quebec 
and  Montreal  were  important  and  entirely  Catholic  cities.  This 
great  fact  blinded  them  to  the  many  disadvantages  they  would 
have  to  undergo  in  emigrating  to  such  a  country ;  or,  rather, 
they  saw  the  disadvantages,  but  the  thought  that  their  religion 
and  that  of  their  children  would  be  safe  in  Canada  was  enough 
for  them.  It  is  the  same  people  ever,  in  the  nineteenth  century 
as  in  those  which  preceded  it,  and  all  noble  minds  must  respect 
them  for  thus  first  looking  to  the  supernatural. 

But,  had  the  Almighty  a  design  in  directing  them  to  the 
north  of  the  continent,  and  establishing  so  great  a  number  of 
them  permanently  in  that  country?  We  are  fully  persuaded 
that  the  Irish  race  is  now,  and  ever  has  been,  predestined  to  ful- 
fill a  high  mission  on  this  earth.  What  is  now  transpiring 
under  our  eyes  is  too  clear  to  be  denied  by  any  Christian ;  and 
admitting  the  general  fact  that  the  race  must  be  an  instrument 
in  the  hands  of  God  to  spread  his  Church  throughout,  in  English- 
speaking  countries  particularly,  to  correct,  by  their  presence  and 
influence  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  the  evil  effects  of  the 
spread  of  what  we  call  Japhetism  among  Oriental  races — let  us 
endeavor  to  see  how  their  coming  to  settle  in  Canada  served  for 
that  great  end. 

The  Gospel  of  our  Lord  was  first  preached  in  those  dreary 
regions  by  religious  of  the  Gallic  race.  The  labors  of  Catholic 
missionaries  in  Canada,  of  the  members  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
particularly,  are  now  well  known  and  appreciated.  The  French 
colony  in  Canada  was  from  the  first  a  Catholic  colony.  It  was 
not  a  conquest ;  it  was  not  a  commercial  enterprise  ;  it  was  not 
a  transatlantic  garden  for  luxurious  Frenchmen  :  it  was  what 
Mr.  Bancroft  has  well  called  it,  "  a  mission."  The  desire  of 
winning  souls  to  Christ  had  begun  the  work,  had  run  all  through 


EMIGRATION. 


415 


it  almost  to  the  end.  The  blood  of  martyrs  had  consecrated  it ; 
that  of  Rasles,  shed  by  heretics ;  of  Lallemant,  Brebeuf,  and 
Jogues,  by  pagans.  But,  after  the  surrender  of  the  colony  to 
England,  although  the  terms  of  the  cession  were  as  favorable  to 
religion  as  could  be  desired,  and  the  British  power  could  not 
introduce  there  any  of  the  penal  laws  still  pressing  so  hard  on 
English  and  Irish  Catholics,  nevertheless,  a  great  danger  arose 
in  consequence,  which  is  particularly  visible  now  after  more  than 
a  century  has  passed  away.  Though  Catholicity  could  not  be 
persecuted,  and,  for  once,  England  faithfully  observed  the  terms 
of  a  capitulation  which  involved  a  religious  side,  as  little  could 
heresy  be  excluded  or  denied  some  of  the  privileges  which  it 
enjoys  in  the  mother  country.  The  government  was  to  be 
administered  mostly  by  Protestant  officials  ;  the  new-comers 
from  England  would  be  composed,  for  the  greater  part,  of  Prot- 
estant merchants  and  artisans.  The  Anglican  Church  would 
soon  gain  the  prestige  of  wealth  and  influence.  The  country  in 
the  east,  it  is  true,  thickly  settled  by  Catholic  farmers,  would 
long  remain  Catholic  ;  but  in  the  large  towns,  Quebec  and  Mon- 
treal chiefly,  an  influx  of  Protestants  of  every  sect  was  to  be 
expected ;  while  in  the  west,  where  the  French  had  scarcely 
occupied  the  country,  the  numerical  majority  would  soon  lean 
to  the  side  of  the  new  arrivals  from  England  and  Scotland.  The 
English  tongue  would  gradually  supersede  the  French,  and  it 
might  have  been  foreseen  from  the  beginning  that,  within  a 
given  time,  notwithstanding  the  rapid  increase  of  French-Cana- 
dians by  birth,  Catholicity  would  lose  first  its  preeminence,  and, 
perhaps,  after  a  while,  occupy  a  very  inferior  rank. 

The  religion  -professed  by  the  many  millions  connected  with 
the  centre  of  unity  has  never  shrunk  from  an  equal  contest,  and 
Is  sure  of  victory  when  left  free  and  untrammelled  ;  but  in  Cana- 
da it  should  be  observed  that,  had  it  not  been  for  the  coming  of 
the  Irish,  the  whole  of  the  Catholic  population  would  have 
spoken  French,  being  surrounded  and  absorbed  almost  by  sec- 
tarians of  every  hue,  all  speaking  English.  The  strange  spectacle 
would  there  have  shown  itself — a  spectacle,  perhaps,  never  wit- 
nessed hitherto — of  a  Catholic  and  Protestant  language.  The 
separation  of  the  two  camps  would  have  rested  chieily  upon  this 
peculiar  basis  ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  with  the  vigorous 
youth  of  the  United  States,  developing  so  rapidly  in  the  South, 
and  destined  to  carry  with  it  the  English  tongue  over  all  the 
Northern  continent,  together  with  the  spread  of  the  English  and 
Scotch  North  and  West,  the  French  language  was  destined  to 
become  circumscribed  within  narrower  and  narrower  limits,  and 
its  final  disappearance  in  America  would  be  probably  only  a 
work  of  time. 

If  it  is  permitted  us  to  study,  love,  and  admire  the  designs 


416 


EMIGRATION. 


of  Providence  among  men,  who  shall  say  that  it  is  presumption 
to  assert  that  God's  was  the  hand  which  directed  the  Irish  exiles 
and  set  them  in  their  place,  in  order  to  prevent  the  sad  spectacle 
of  a  land  settled  by  holy  people,  belonging  almost  exclusively  to 
God  and  to  Christ,  endeared  to  the  true  Church  by  so  many 
labors  endured  for  the  spread  of  truth,  and  memorable  by  so 
many  heroic  virtues  practised  in  those  frozen  wilds  and  dreary 
forests,  from  falling  sooner  or  later  into  the  hands  of  the  most 
unrelenting  enemies  of  the  papacy '? 

It  cannot  be  presumptuous  to  attribute  it  to  the  designs  of 
Providence,  as  otherwise  it  is  impossible  to  discover  auy  reason 
whatever  which  might  influence  the  Irish  in  selecting  that  deso- 
late spot  for  their  place  of  exile.  They  came,  therefore,  in  great 
numbers,  to  set  themselves  under  the  spiritual  control  of  priests 
unable  to  understand  either  their  native  language  or  the  bor- 
rowed English  they  brought  with  them  ;  they  came,  confident 
that  all  the  Catholic  churches  built  prior  to  their  coming  would 
be  open  to  them,  and  that  the  pastors  of  those  French  congrega- 
tions would  receive  them,  not  as  strangers,  but  as  long-lost 
children,  at  last  let  loose  from  a  land  of  bondage,  come  to  share 
the  freedom  secured  by  the  settlers. 

The  statistics  of  immigration  having  been  accurately  kept 
since  1815,  it  is  easy  to  ascertain  the  number  of  Irish  people  who 
landed  in  Canada  during  the  precise  period  under  investigation. 
And,  although  a  certain  number,  which  increased  with  the  years, 
did  not  remain  in  the  country  where  they  first  landed,  but 
pushed  on  immediately,  or  shortly  after,  south  to  the  United 
States,  still,  a  large  proportion  settled  permanently  in  the 
country. 

Half  a  million  English-speaking  persons  arrived  in  Canada 
between  the  years  1815  and  1839.  At  that  time  there  was  no 
distinction  made  between  the  three  different  classes  coming  re- 
spectively from  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  ;  but,  when  this 
classification  afterward  came  to  be  made,  the  Irish  formed  a 
steady  three-fourths  of  the  whole.  Applying  this  proportion  to 
the  time  under  consideration,  we  have  the  large  amount  of  three 
hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand.  The  number  was  afterward 
considerably  increased,  although  a  greater  number  still  went 
directly  to  the  United  States  ;  so  that  it  is  ascertained  that  within 
ten  years,  from  1839  to  1849,  four  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
thousand  Irish  people  arrived  in  Canada ;  that  is  to  say,  at  a  rate 
of  fifty  thousand  a  year. 

The  country  in  which  they  settled  was  certainly  large,  as  it 
comprised  not  only  Canada  proper,  but  also  the  British  provinces 
of  New  Brunswick,  Nova  Scotia,  and  the  large  islands  in  the 
vicinity.  But,  as  the  Irish,  contrary  to  their  former  custom, 
now  prefer  to  dwell  in  large  towns  and  assemble  together  rather 


EMIGRATION". 


417 


than  find  themselves,  as  it  were,  lost  in  a  sparsely-peopled  dis- 
trict, the  population  of  important  cities,  such  as  Quebec  and 
Montreal,  and  of  the  growing  western  towns  of  Toronto,  Kings- 
ton, and  others,  was  very  sensibly  affected  by  their  arrival.  The 
English  was  no  longer  to  be  an  exclusively  Protestant  tongue ; 
and,  as  the  more  rapid  increase  of  the  Irish  by  birth  would  soon 
equalize  numbers,  and  give  them  eventually  the  preponderance, 
it  was  clear  that  the  country  would  ultimately  remain  Catholic, 
even  supposing  that  the  French  tongue  should  be  finally  for- 
gotten. 

The  first  extensive  emigration  to  the  large  cities  of  Canada 
was  also  owing  to  the  fact  that,  the  eastern  provinces  not  having 
come  under  the  stipulation  of  the  capitulation  treaty,  the  penal 
laws  were  still  unrepealed  in  that  district.  Toward  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century  we  find  Father  Burke,  wishing  to  open  a  school 
for  Catholic  children  at  Halifax,  Nova  Scotia,  threatened  with 
the  enforcement  of  the  law  by  the  then  governor  of  the  province, 
if  he  persevered  in  his  attempt,  a  threat  which  was  only  prevent- 
ed from  being  carried  into  execution  by  the  liberal  spirit  of  the 
Protestant  inhabitants.  The  flow  of  emigration  to  the  colonies 
south  and  east  of  the  St.  Lawrence  was,  consequently,  of  a 
much  later,  in  fact,  for  the  most  part,  of  quite  recent  date. 

In  Newfoundland  the  case  was  still  worse.  That  region  had 
been  ceded  to  Great  Britain  by  France,  in  1713,  at  the  Treaty  of 
Utrecht ;  and,  although  that  treaty  stipulated  that  freedom  of 
worship  should  be  guaranteed,  nevertheless,  the  country  re- 
mained closed  to  Catholic  clergymen,  the  stipulation  being  nul- 
lified by  the  treacherous  clause  "  as  far  as  the  laws  of  England 
permitted."  Hence,  the  French  Catholics  with  their  clergy 
were  soon  obliged  to  leave  the  colony,  and  as  late  as  1765,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Maguire  ("  Irish  in  America  "),  the  governor  of 
the  island  was  issuing  orders  worthy  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne. 
In  the  words  of  Dr.  Murdock,  Bishop  of  St.  John's,  Newfound- 
land, "  the  Irish  had  not  the  liberty  of  the  birds  of  the  air  to 
build  or  repair  their  nests  ;  they  had  behind  them  the  forest  or 
the  rocky  soil,  which  they  were  not  allowed,  without  license  diffi- 
cultly obtained,  to  reclaim  and  till.  Their  only  resource  was 
the  stormy  ocean,  and  they  saw  the  wealth  they  won  from  the 
deep  spent  in  other  lands,  leaving  them  only  a  scanty  sub- 
sistence." 

The  Irish  had  therefore  to  fall  back  on  the  cities  of  Lower 
Canada,  where,  moreover,  they  found  numerous  churches  and 
priests.  Hence,  Quebec  was  their  first  place  of  refuge,  and  they 
soon  formed  a  large  percentage  of  the  population.  Montreal  was 
their  choice  from  the  first,  where  they  arrived  in  crowds,  at- 
tracted by  the  intense  pleasure  they  felt  at  the  happy  chance 
of  living  and  dying  in  a  really  Catholic  city,  where,  turn  in  what 
27 


418 


EMIGRATION. 


direction  they  would,  their  eyes  were  gladdened  by  the  sight 
of  magnificent  churches,  colleges,  convents,  hospitals,  with  the 
cross,  the  symbol  of  their  faith,  surmounting  nearly  all  the  pub- 
lic edifices  of  the  city. 

Western  Canada  was  as  yet  an  uninviting  field  for  the  Irish. 
A  large  number  of  Scotchmen  and  "  Orangemen  "  had  already 
settled  there,  when  the  British  Government,  having  adopted  the 
scheme  of  emigration  for  Ireland,  offered  them  favorable  condi- 
tions for  transport  and  settlement.  It  was  on  the  west  chiefly 
that  an  invasion  of  English  Protestantism  threatened,  and  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland  were,  in  the  dispensation  of  Providence,  to 
meet  that  danger.  It  is  no  surprise,  then,  to  find  the  English 
Government  itself  made  subservient  to  designs  very  different 
from  its  own,  offering  in  1825  to  bear  the  whole  expense  of 
establishing  large  bodies  of  Irishmen  on  these  wilds — wilds  then, 
but  full  of  promise  for  the  future.  Among  other  colonies  trans- 
ported bodily,  Mr.  Maguire  tells  of  four  hundred  and  fifteen 
families,  comprising  two  thousand  individuals,  all  from  the  south 
of  Ireland,  genuine  "  Irish  in  birth  and  blood,"  transported  from 
Cork  harbor  to  Western  Canada,  on  board  British  ships,  under 
the  auspices  of  the  government.  Their  story  will  well  repay  the 
reading,  and  above  all  their  remonstrance  to  the  governor  of 
the  province,  after  they  had  surmounted  the  first  difficulties  of 
their  new  position  :  "  We  labor  under  a  heavy  grievance,  which, 
we  confidently  hope,  your  Excellency  will  redress,  and  then  we 
will  be  completely  happy,  viz.,  the  want  of  clergymen  to  admin- 
ister to  us  the  comforts  of  our  holy  religion,  and  good  school- 
masters to  instruct  our  children." 

In  spite,  however,  of  the  efforts  made  by  British  statesmen  to 
direct  the  flow  of  Irish  emigration  to  the  northern  part  of  the 
American  Continent,  the  number  of  those  who  voluntarily 
crossed  the  Atlantic  to  settle  directly  in  the  United  States  was 
steadily  increasing.  Not  only  did  they  find  there  perfect  free- 
dom of  religion,  but  the  absence  of  clergymen  was  being  gradual- 
ly less  felt,  and  each  new  bishopric  created  became  a  centre  of 
religious  life  and  vigor. 

Moreover,  the  new  republic  had  turned  out  to  be  the  most 
energetic  and  enterprising  nation  which  the  world  had  yet  seen. 
A  whole  continent  lay  before  it  to  subdue,  and  at  once  the  young 
giant  prepared  to  grapple  with  the  truly  gigantic  difficulty. 
With  the  arrival  of  every  "  packet-boat,"  Europe  was  astonished 
to  hear  of  the  amazing  vitality  displayed  by  a  nation  of  yesterday, 
composed  of  a  few  millions  of  individuals,  who  had  already 
spread  their  frontiers  as  far  north  as  the  whole  line  of  the  great 
lakes,  as  far  west  as  the  Pacific  coast,  and  southward  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  Louisiana  fell  in,  and,  from  a  state  of  torpidity  in 
which  it  had  slumbered,  the  vast  territory  which  then  went  by 


EMIGRATION. 


419 


that  name  waked  suddenly  into  a  prodigiously  active  life.  At 
the  very  beginning  of  the  century,  the  Missouri  had  been  navi- 
gated to  its  source,  and  Lewis  and  Clarke,  crossing  the  high  ridge 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  had  descended  the  Columbia  to  its 
mouth,  and  settled  the  boundary  of  the  United  States  along  the 
far-spreading  Pacific.  The  mighty  Mississippi,  in  tne  midst  of 
that  splendid  domain,  belonged  from  source  to  mouth  to  the  re- 
public, and,  with  its  tributaries,  was  already  alive  with  numerous 
steamboats,  passing  up  and  down,  bearing  their  life  and  all  its 
belongings  with  them,  and  the  (at  that  time  more  numerous 
still)  flatboats,  carried  down  the  stream,  to  reach,  in  due  time, 
New  Orleans. 

There  was  small  thought  of  hindering  "foreigners "  from 
coming  to  take  a  share  in  the  giant  enterprise.  All  the  inhab- 
itants were  in  fact  foreigners  to  the  soil ;  and  the  new-comers, 
no  matter  from  what  country  they  came,  had  just  as  good  a  right 
to  sit  at  the  common  board  as  the  first-landed.  It  was  felt  and 
wisely  acknowledged  to  be  the  real  interest  of  the  young  nation 
to  welcome  as  great  a  number  as  Europe  could  send. 

Thus  have  we  already  seen  large  numbers  of  Irishmen  labor- 
ing along  the  Erie  Canal.  There  was  not  a  public  work  under- 
taken at  the  time  in  which  they  did  not  bear  a  welcome  hand. 
And  what  race  of  men  could  be  found  better  fitted  for  such 
work?  It  would  indeed  be  interesting  to  show  from  good 
statistical  tables  what  share  Irishmen  have  really  had  in  building 
up  the  prosperity  of  the  Union  by  their  labor,  skilled  and  un- 
skilled. 

At  the  period  we  have  now  come  to,  they  were  already  crowd- 
ing in  at  the  harbors  of  the  Atlantic,  so  astonishing  to  the  newly- 
arrived  European  by  the  extraordinary  activity  which  character- 
izes them  ;  they  were  numerous  in  the  factories  just  starting  into 
life,  from  the  desire  of  not  depending  on  England  for  all  manu- 
factured goods ;  they  were  multiplying  in  large  hotels,  in  private 
families,  in  the  fields  outside  the  large  cities.  Above  all,  the 
buildings  erected  at  the  time,  in  such  great  numbers,  employed 
many  of  them  as  mechanics  and  laborers ;  and  whenever  some 
grand  undertaking,  which  looked  to  the  future  welfare  of  the  coun- 
try, demanded  a  large  draft  of  men,  there  were  they  to  be  seen 
as  they  had  never  been  seen  before,  even  in  their  own  country, 
where  all  labor  was  reduced  to  the  individual  efforts  of  each,  just 
sufficient  to  eke  out  a  miserable  life. 

At  this  time,  about  1820,  the  Irish  immigrants  settled,  for  the 
most  part,  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard ;  few  had  yet  crossed  even 
the  ridge  of  the  Alleghanies.  In  the  Eastern  States  they  found 
occupation  enough,  and  the  steady  growth  of  the  country  required 
their  willing  aid.  From  that  time  the  North  formed  their  chief 
point  of  attraction,  and  the  States  of  Pennsylvania,  Xew  Jersey, 


±20 


EMIGRATION. 


and  New  York,  were  their  great  resorts.    Even  New  England 

was  no  longer  forbidden  ground  to  them,  and  they  began  to  spread 
themselves  over  its  rocky  and  unpromising  surface,  to  effect  there 
a  greater  moral  change  than  probably  anywhere  else  in  the  coun- 
try. In  1827,  during  the  first  pastoral  visitation  of  Bishop  Fen- 
wick,  when  he  erected,  on  the  spot  made  memorable  by  the  apos- 
tolic labors  of  Father  Pasles,  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  that 
saintly  man,  we  read  that  "he  then  went  in  search  of  some  Irish 
Catholics  living  at  Belfast,  Maine,  whom  he  found  suffering  both 
for  the  necessaries  of  life  and  for  the  sustenance  of  the  soul.  He 
relieved  both  their  temporal  and  spiritual  wants,  and  imparted 
them  his  blessing,  and  some  wholesome  advice." 

He  was  enabled  to  do  more  for  them  in  the  following  year  at 
Charlestown,  Massachusetts.  On  the  15th  of  October,  1828,  ac- 
cording to  the  Boston  Gazette,  "  he  laid  the  corner-stone  of  a 
Catholic  church  near  Craigie's  Point,  designed  to  accommodate 
the  Catholics  of  that  place  and  of  Charlestown,  who  were  said 
to  be  already  numerous/''  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  several 
churches  built  about  that  time  in  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Mas- 
sachusetts, Connecticut,  and  Bhode  Island,  were  filled  rather  by 
Irish  immigrants  than  by  American  converts,  although  not  a  few 
consoling  examples  of  this  latter  method  of  the  Church's  increase 
took  place  about  this  period. 

But  New  York  was  taking  the  lead  as  the  landing  of  predi- 
lection for  the  desolate  children  of  Ireland.  Thus,  at  the  instal- 
lation of  Bishop  Dubois,  in  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  November 
9,  1826,  he  addressed  himself  particularly  to  the  Irish  portion 
of  his  congregation,  observing  that  "  he  entertained  for  them 
the  liveliest  feelings  of  affection.  He  reminded  them  of  the  per 
seditions  they  had  undergone  in  defence  of  their  religion,  of  the 
sacrifices  many  of  them  had  made  on  leaving  their  native  coun- 
try, and  conjured  them  always  to  manifest  that  attachment  to 
the  religion  of  their  forefathers  which  had  hitherto  so  promi- 
nently distinguished  them  among  their  brother  Catholics." 

The  whole  State  was  beginning  to  swarm  with  new  arrivals 
from  the  Green  Isle.  This  detachment,  however,  only  formed 
the  scarcely  perceptible  head  of  the  great  army  which  was  to  fol- 
low. We  shall  soon  return  to  see  its  masses  steadily  treading 
their  way  on  toward  the  West,  and  never  halting  till  they  reached 
the  Pacific  coast ;  we  will  see  for  what  purpose. 

Meanwhile,  it  is  fitting  to  look  at  another  wing  of  this  army 
taking  its  position  directly  south  of  Asia,  the  great  continent 
which  holds  the  first  dwelling  of  man  on  earth,  and  toward  which 
all  the  tendencies  of  modern  civilization  seem  to  turn. 

An  immense  island,  to  which  geographers  have  now  given 
the  name  of  the  fifth  continent,  from  the  dawn  of  creation  lay 
sleeping  between  the  seas  knowu  as  the  Indian  and  Pacific  Oceans. 


EMIGRATION". 


421 


A  few  thousand  savages,  said  to  be  the  lowest  type  of  the  human 
family,  roamed  aimlessly  over  its  extensive  wilds.  Out  of  the 
ordinary  route  of  circumnavigating  explorers,  few  European  ships 
had  reached  its  coast,  when  the  Dutch  attempted  to  form  estab- 
lishments on  its  southern  and  western  sides,  giving  it  the  name 
of  New  Holland.  At  the  end  of  last  century  the  English  Cap- 
tain Cook  formed  the  first  successful  European  settlement — 
Botany  Bay — in  what  he  called  New  South  Wales,  at  the  south- 
eastern extremity  of  the  island.  The  French  surveyed  a  consid- 
erable portion  of  the  western  coast  at  the  beginning  of  this  cen- 
tury. But  finally,  as  has  so  far  generally  been  the  case  with 
other  colonies,  the  English  remained  in  possession  of  the  whole, 
and,  though  their  first  thought  was  to  use  it  merely  as  a  penal 
settlement,  they  soon  saw  the  importance  of  removing  their  con- 
victs to  Yan  Diemen's  Island,  and  now  no  less  than  four  or  five 
distinct  British  colonies  embrace  the  entire  coast-line  of  the  con- 
tinent, the  interior  still  remaining  an  unknown  desert. 

Immigration,  other  than  the  transport  of  criminals,  began 
only  in  1825  ;  and  the  white  population  of  New  South  Wales, 
which  in  1810  was  only  eight  thousand  three  hundred,  in  1821 
only  thirty  thousand,  increased  rapidly  after  the  discovery  of  the 
gold-fields  in  1S51,  so  that  in  1861  more  than  seven  hundred 
thousand  free  colonists  had  been  landed  from  British  ships  on 
the  continent  and  large  islands  of  Yan  Diemen  and  New  Zea- 
land, notwithstanding  their  enormous  distance  from  Great 
Britain. 

The  importance  of  this  vast  colony,  or,  rather,  of  this  ag-  • 
glomeration  of  colonies,  should  not  be  estimated  from  their 
extent  and  productions  alone,  but  chiefly  from  their  proximity 
to  Asia  toward  the  north,  and  to  America  toward  the  east. 
Already  lines  of  steamers  connect  the  new  continent  with  China 
on  the  one  side  and  San  Francisco  on  the  other  ;  and  when  we 
reflect  that  the  English  tongue  is  the  only  one  spoken  through- 
out that  vast  territory ;  that  English  political  institutions,  with 
all  their  attendant  machinery  of  parliaments,  elections,  municipal 
governments,  and  liberties,  toleration,  a  free  press  and  free  dis- 
cussion, are  day  by  day  becoming  more  deeply  rooted  in  the 
habits  of  the  people,  it  is  easy  to  perceive  how  soon  the  pecu- 
liarities of  Japhetism,  starting  from  that  centre,  will  invade  the 
whole  line  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Asia  and  the  countless  island- 
groups  of  Polynesia.  The  Catholic  reader  will  at  once  perceive 
how  the  true  religion  must  have  been  left  to  struggle,  hopelessly 
almost,  in  its  mission  of  enlightenment  and  mercy,  surrounded 
as  it  was  by  so  many  adverse  circumstances,  had  not  the  Irish 
element  been  at  hand  to  fall  back  on. 

Our  information  on  this  important  branch  of  the  subject  is 
unfortunately  not  extensive ;  nor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at,  since 


422 


EMIGRATION. 


it  is  only  from  1851  that  Irish  immigration  really  began  to  show 
itself  in  Australia,  and  take  an  active  part  in  the  European  rush 
toward  that  quarter  of  the  world,  or,  rather,  to  use  the  phrase 
of  Holy  Writ,  "  to  dwell  in  the  tents  of  Sem." 

When  Great  Britain  sent  out  her  first  cargoes  of  convicts  to 
Australia,,  it  never  entered  into  the  ideas  of  that  enlightened 
power  that  such  an  attendant  as  a  minister  of  religion  might  be 
wanted,  and,  as  Mr.  Marshall  says  in  his  book  on  "  Christian 
Missions : "  "  The  first  ship  which  bore  away  its  freight  of 
despair,  of  bruised  hearts,  and  woful  memories,  and  fearful 
expectations,  would  have  left  the  shores  of  England  without 
even  a  solitary  minister  of  religion,  but  for  the  timely  remon- 
strance of  a  private  individual.  The  civil  authorities  had 
deemed  their  work  complete,  when  they  had  given  the  signal  to 
raise  the  anchor  and  unloose  the  sails  ;  the  rest  was  no  concern 
of  theirs."  He  adds  something  more  extraordinary  and  more  to 
our  purpose  still : 

"  Among  the  emigrants  to  the  new  continent,  soon  some  of 
those  children  of  Ireland,  whom  Providence  seems  to  have 
dispersed  through  all  the  homes  of  the  Saxon  race,  that  they 
might  one  day  rekindle  among  them  the  light  of  faith,  which 
their  own  long  misfortunes  have  never  been  able  to  quench, 
were  carried  as  the  first  fruitful  seeds  of  the  ever-blooming  tree 
of  the  Church." 

To  these  exiles  it  was  necessary  to  convey  the  succors  of 
religion.  The  first  Catholic  priest  who  arrived  in  Australia  on 
his  mission  of  charity,  and  whom  the  policy  of  self-interest,  at 
least,  might  have  prompted  the  authorities  to  greet  with  eager 
welcome,  was  treated  with  derision,  and  "  was  directed,"  as  one 
of  his  most  energetic  successors  relates,  "  to  produce  his  permis- 
sion," or  "  hold  himself  in  readiness  for  departure  by  the  next 
ship."  He  was  alone,  and  consequently  a  safe  victim ;  and 
though,  as  the  latest  historian  of  the  colony  observes,  M  his 
ministrations  would  have  been  not  less  valuable  in  a  social  than 
in  a  religious  point  of  view,"  he  was  seized,  put  in  prison,  and 
finally  sent  back  to  England,  because  his  presence  was  irksome 
to  men  who  seem  to  have  felt  instinctively  that  his  prolfered 
ministry  was  the  keenest  rebuke  to  their  own  cruelty  and  pro- 
faneness. 

This  first  Catholic  priest  was  the  Rev.  Mr.  Flynn,  on  whom 
the  Holy  See  had  conferred  the  title  of  archpriest,  with  power 
to  administer  confirmation.  Arrived  at  Sydney  in  181 8,  he  did 
much  ^ood  there  in  a  short  time.  Mr.  Marshall  has  told  us  how 
the  colonial  authorities  treated  him. 

But  a  circumstance,  not  mentioned  in  this  clever  author's 
work  on  "  Missions,"  shows  who  and  what  were  those  Irish 
exiles  whom  the  priest  had  come  to  serve  and  direct  in  his  spirit- 


EMIGRATION. 


423 


ual  capacity.  When  suddenly  carried  off  to  prison,  he  left  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  in  their  little  church  at  Sydney.  There  the 
faithful  frequently  assembled  during  the  two  years  which  fol- 
lowed his  departure,  as  large  a  number  as  could  muster,  to  offer 
up  their  prayers  to  God,  and  look  for  consolation  in  their  afflic- 
tion. The  visible  priest  had  been  violently  snatched  away  from 
them  ;  the  Archpriest  of  souls,  Christ,  remained. 

The  Rev.  W.  Ullathorne,  now  Bishop  of  Birmingham,  Eng- 
land, was  afterward  made  Yicar-General  Apostolic  of  that 
desolate  mission  by  the  Holy  See.    He  informs  us,  in  a  letter 

Eublished  among  the  "Annals  of  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith," 
ow  these  poor  Irish  people  were  treated  by  their  "  masters  "  in 
Australia. 

"  It  was  forbidden  them  to  speak  Irish,  under  pain  of  fifty 
strokes  of  the  whip  ;  and  the  magistrates,  who  for  the  most  part 
belonged  to  the  '  Protestant  clergy,'  sentenced  also  to  the  whip 
and  to  close  confinement  those  who  refused  to  go  hear  their  ser- 
mons, and  to  assist  at  a  service  which  their  consciences  dis- 
avowed." 

In  1820  two  fresh  missionaries  replaced  Mr.  Flynn.  They 
found  the  little  church  where  their  predecessor  had  left  our  Lord 
two  years  before  still  in  the  same  state  ;  and  soon  the  insignifi- 
cant flock,  which  ever  multiplies  under  persecution,  began  to 
increase  wonderfully,  so  that  twelve  years  later,  out  of  the  whole 
population  of  the  colony — one  hundred  thousand — there  were 
from  twenty  to  thirty  thousand  Catholics. 

Meanwhile,  their  emancipation  in  England  had  secured  their 
rights  in  the  British  colonies.  There  was  no  longer  the  threat 
of  the  whip  hanging  over  those  who  refused  to  hear  Protestant 
sermons ;  there  was  no  longer  fear  of  their  missionary  being 
sent  back  by  the  first  ship  to  England.  Hence  the  Holy  See 
immediately  established  the  hierarchy  of  the  Church,  on  a  reg- 
ular and  permanent  basis,  there,  Dr.  Polding  being  the  first 
bishop. 

This  may  be  called  an  era  in  the  history  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  A  hierarchy,  independent  of  the  state  in  heretic  and 
even  infidel  countries,  is  a  modern  thought  inspired  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  the  rulers  of  the  flock  of  Christ  to  meet  modern  re- 
quirements. By  this  new  system  the  long  list  of  so-called  Prot- 
estant countries  was  at  once  swept  away.  For  no  country  can 
be  called  Protestant  which  has  its  regularly-established  bishops 
of  Holy  Church,  with  their  authority  permanently  secured. 
Their  dioceses  cover  the  land,  and  the  land  consequently  belongs 
to  the  Church,  however  great  may  be  the  number  of  heretics  or 
infidels,  and  however  powerful  the  organizations  antagonistic  to 
Catholicity.  The  "  people  of  God  "  is  there,  to  multiply  with 
the  years,  and  finally  absorb  all  heterogeneous  bodies.  The 


424 


EMIGRATION. 


Church,  as  we  saw,  is  a  growth  ;  other  bodies  are  crystallized  and 
do  not  grow  ;  more,  they  become  materially  and  necessarily  dis- 
integrated by  the  action  of  time  and  the  friction  of  surrounding 
bodies,  of  spreading  roots  and  living  organisms. 

This  plain,  unmistakable,  eventual  truth  was  the  real  cause 
which  brought  about  the  violent  explosion  of  fear  and  hatred 
following  directly  the  reestablishing  of  the  Catholic  hierarchy  in 
England.  The  opposing  forces  felt  that  their  hour  was  come, 
and  they  could  not  but  shiver  at  their  approaching  annihilation, 
small  as  was  the  body  of  the  English  Catholics  at  the  time.  But 
it  is  not  for  us  to  enter  here  on  these  considerations,  which 
would  call  for  long  developments,  and  which  belong  more 
fittingly  to  the  general  history  of  the  Church  than  to  Irish 
emigration  to  Australia. 

The  few  facts  glanced  at  above  afford  ample  grounds  for  pict- 
uring the  state  of  the  first  Irish  exiles  who  set  foot  on  that 
broad  island  of  the  Antipodes.  It  was  only  a  repetition  of  the 
scenes  witnessed  at  the  same  time  wherever  the  Irish  strove  to 
propagate  the  true  faith.  Later  on  it  will  be  our  pleasure  to 
come  back  to  this  field  and  wonder  at  the  growth  of  a  blooming 
garden  which,  has  replaced  the  old  sterility. 

Of  the  other  British  colonies  wherein  a  certain  number  of 
Irishmen  began  to  settle  at  the  time  of  the  present  investigation, 
no  details  can  yet  be  furnished.  It  is  easy  to  suppose,  however, 
without  fear  of  mistake,  that  the  spiritual  destitution  and  state 
of  more  or  less  open  persecution  which  we  have  found  existing 
in  America  and  Australia,  prevailed  also  at  the  Cape  Colony,  at 
Natal,  in  Guiana,  Labuan,  Ceylon,  etc.  A  very  different  spec- 
tacle is  about  to  be  unfolded  before  our  eyes,  and  we  hasten  on 
to  behold  its  wondrous  development  and  splendor — a  splendor, 
however,  ushered  in  by  scenes  of  extreme  woe. 


CHAPTEE  XV 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 

The  stream  of  Irish  emigrants,  starting  from  the  one  source, 
separated  now  and  continued  flowing  to  the  four  quarters  of  the 
globe,  and,  at  length,  its  influence  was  beginning  to  be  felt  in 
England  itself,  the  last  of  the  lands  whither  the  Irish  exiles 
could  think  of  turning.  The  poorest,  unable  to  pay  their  pas- 
sage-money to  North  America,  began  to  show  themselves  among 
the  thick  populations  of  the  great  manufacturing  centres  of  Great 
Britain.  More  than  fifty  thousand  departed  annually  to  settle 
in  other  climes  and  plant  Catholicity  in  regions  that,  from  a 
religious  point  of  view,  were  wildernesses. 

In  1846  came  an  awful  calamity,  to  impart  to  the  movement 
an  impetus  of  which  no  one  could  have  dreamed,  and  which 
went  very  far  to  realize  what  M.  de  Beaumont  had  a  few  years 
before  declared  to  be  an  impossibility — the  almost  sudden  trans-  • 
portation  of  millions  of  starving  Irish.  This  was  the  great 
famine,  still  so  fresh  in  memory,  and  now  appearing  to  those 
who  witnessed  its  effects  like  that  terrible  passage  of  the  destroy- 
ing angel  in  the  night. 

There  is  no  better  mode  of  accounting  for  this  visitation  than 
that  given  by  T.  D.  McGee,  in  his  "  Irish  Settlers  in  America : " 

"  The  famine  (of  1846)  is  to  be  thus  accounted  for  :  The  act 
of  Union  in  1800  deprived  Ireland  of  a  native  legislature.  Her 
aristocracy  emigrated  to  London.  Her  tariff  expired  in  1826, 
and,  of  course,  was  not  renewed.  Her  merchants  and  manufac- 
turers withdrew  their  capital  from  trade  and  invested  it  in  land. 
The  land  !  the  land !  was  the  object  of  universal,  unlimitable 
competition.  In  the  first  twenty  years  of  the  century,  the 
farmers,  if  rack-rented,  had  still  the  war  prices.  After  the  peace, 
they  had  the  monopoly  of  the  English  provision  and  produce 
markets.  But  in  1846  Sir  Robert  Peel  successfully  struck  at 
the  old  laws  imposing  duties  on  foreign  corn,  and  let  in  Baltic 
wheat  and  American  provisions  of  every  kind,  to  compete  with 
and  undersell  the  Irish  rack-rented  farmers. 

"  High  rents  had  produced  hardness  of  heart  in  the  4  middle- 


426 


THE  "EXODUS"  AXD  ITS  EFFECTS. 


man,'  extravagance  in  the  land-owner,  and  extreme  poverty  in 
the  peasant.  The  poor-law  commission  of  1839  reported  that 
two  million  three  hundred  thousand  of  the  agricultural  laborers 
of  Ireland  were  'paupers;'  that  those  immediately  above  the 
lowest  rank  were  '  the  worst-clad,  worst-fed,  and  worst-lodged 1 
peasantry  in  Europe.  True  indeed  !  They  were  lodged  in  styes, 
clothed  in  rags,  and  fed  on  the  poorest  quality  of  potato. 

"  Partial  failures  of  this  crop  had  taken  place  for  a  succession 
of  seasons.  So  regularly  did  those  failures  occur,  that  William 
Cobbett  and  other  skilful  agriculturists  had  foretold  their  final 
destruction  years  before.  Still,  the  crops  of  the  summer  of  1846 
looked  fair  and  sound  to  the  eye.  The  dark-green,  crispy  leaves, 
and  yellow-and-purple  blossoms  of  the  potato-fields,  were  a  cheer- 
ful feature  in  every  landscape.  By  July,  however,  the  terrible 
fact  became  but  too  certain.  From  every  town-land  within  the 
four  seas  tidings  came  to  the  capital  that  the  people's  food  was 
blasted — utterly,  hopelessly  blasted.  Incredulity  gave  way  to 
panic,  panic  to  demands  on  the  Imperial  Government  to  stop  the 
export  of  grain,  to  establish  public  granaries,  and  to  give  the 
peasantry  such  productive  employment  as  would  enable  them  to 
purchase  food  enough  to  keep  soul  and  body  together.  By  a  re- 
port of  the  ordnance-captain,  Larcom,  it  appeared  there  were 
grain-crops  more  than  sufficient  to  support  the  whole  population 
— a  cereal  harvest  estimated  at  four  hundred  millions  of  dollars, 
as  prices  were.  But  to  all  remonstrances,  petitions,  and  propo- 
sals, the  imperial  economists  had  but  one  answer  :  6  They  could 
not  interfere  with  the  ordinary  currents  of  trade.'  O'Conn ell's 
proposal,  Lord  George  Bentinck's,  O'Brien's,  the  proposals  of 
the  societv  called  '  The  Irish  Council,'  all  received  the  same 
answer.  Fortunes  were  made  and  lost  in  gambling  over  this 
sudden  trade  in  human  subsistence,  and  ships  laden  to  the  gun- 
wales sailed  out  of  Irish  ports,  while  the  charities  of  the  world 
were  coming  in. 

"  In  August,  authentic  cases  of  death  by  famine,  with  the 
verdict,  i  starvation,'  were  reported.  The  first  authentic  case 
thrilled  the  country,  like  an  ill  wind.  From  twos  and  threes  they 
rose  to  tens,  and,  in  September,  such  inquests  were  held,  and  the 
same  sad  verdict  repeated,  twenty  times  in  a  day.  Then  Ireland, 
the  hospitable  among  the  nations,  smitten  with  famine,  deserted 
by  her  imperial  masters,  lifted  up  her  voice,  and  uttered  that  cry 
of  awful  anguish  which  shook  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

"  The  Czar,  the  Sultan,  and  the  Pope,  sent  their  rubles  and 
their  pauls.  The  Pacha  of  Egypt,  the  Shah  of  Persia,  the  Em- 
peror of  China,  the  Rajahs  of  India,  conspired  to  do  for  Ireland 
what  her  so-styled  rulers  refused  to  do — to  keep  her  young  and 
old  people  living  in  the  land.  America  did  more  in  this  work 
of  mercy  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world." 


THE  "EXODUS"  AKD  ITS  EFFECTS.  427 


The  sudden  effect  of  this  fearful  trial  was  to  increase  the  total 
emigration  from  the  British  Isles  from  ninety-three  thousand  in 
1845  to  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  in  1846  ;  to  three  hun- 
dred thousand  in  1849 ;  to  nearly  four  hundred  thousand  in  1852. 
In  ten  years  from  1846,  two  million  eight  hundred  thousand  had 
fled  in  horror  from  the  country  once  so  dear  to  them.  From 
May,  1847,  to  the  close  of  1866,  the  number  of  passengers  dis- 
charged at  New  York  alone  amounted  to  three  million  six  hun- 
dred and  fifty-nine  thousand ! 

Those  immense  fleets  of  transports,  which  M.  de  Beaumont 
thought  necessary,  but  not  to  be  found,  were  found.  On  such  a 
sudden  emergency,  every  kind  of  tub  afloat  was  thought  suitable 
for  the  purpose ;  and,  all  being  sailing-vessels,  the  voyage  was 
proportionately  long,  the  provision  made  for  such  numbers  in- 
sufficient, and  the  emigrants,  already  weakened  by  privations, 
were  fit  subjects  for  the  plague  which,  under  the  form  of  ship- 
fever,  rapidly  spread  among  those  receptacles  of  human  misery, 
so  that,  when  the  great  caravan  arrived  in  the  St.  Lawrence, 
whither  that  first  year  all  seemed  to  tend,  the  following  was  the 
picture  presented : 

"  On  the  8th  of  May,  1847,  the  Urania,  from  Cork,  with 
several  hundred  immigrants  on  board,  a  large  proportion  of  them 
sick  and  dying  of  the  ship-fever,  was  put  into  quarantine  at 
Grosse  Isle,  thirty  miles  below  Quebec.  This  was  the  first  of 
the  plague-smitten  ships  of  Ireland  which  that  year  sailed  up  the 
St.  Lawrence.  But,  before  the  first  week  of  June,  as  many  as 
eighty-four  ships,  of  various  tonnage,  were  driven  in  by  an  east- 
erly wind ;  and  of  that  enormous  number  of  vessels  there  was 
not  one  free  from  the  taint  of  malignant  typhus,  the  offspring 
of  famine  and  of  the  foul  ship-hold." 

The  effects  of  that  awful  misfortune  may  be  found  vividly 
described  in  Mr.  Maguire's  book,  from  which  the  above  extract 
is  taken,  on  the  long  line  of  march  of  that  desolate  army  of  im- 
migrants, leaving  its  thousands  of  victims  at  Grosse  Isle,  near 
Quebec,  at  Pointe  St.  Charles,  a  suburb  of  Montreal,  in  Kings- 
ton, in  Toronto,  Upper  Canada,  and,  finally,  at  Partridge  Island, 
opposite  St.  John's,  JS"ew  Brunswick. 

America  was  thus  destined  to  witness  some  of  those  scenes  so 
often  enacted  on  the  soil  of  Ireland,  to  compassionate  the  people 
of  the  holy  isle,  to  open  her  friendly  bosom  for  the  reception  of 
the  unfortunate  beings,  who  in  return  gave  her  all  they  pos- 
sessed— their  faith. 

But  what  M.  de  Beaumont  so  emphatically  insisted  upon, 
although  at  first  seemingly  contradicted  by  the  event,  was  never- 
theless true.  England,  the  mighty  mistress  of  the  seas,  did  not 
possess  ships  enough  for  the  purpose  of  transportation  ;  and  her 
entire  navy  added  to  all  her  merchant-vessels  would  scarcely  have 


428 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


sufficed.  Ships  had  to  be  built,  steamers  chiefly,  in  order  to 
effect  the  transportation  speedily,  and  diminish  the  dangers  of 
the  passage. 

Then  providence  worked  upon  the  ingenuity  of  worldly-wise 
men,  and  set  them  planning  and  studying  the  question  in  all  its 
bearings,  to  devise  new  schemes  of  transportation  on  a  scale  not 
dreamed  of  hitherto.  Watt,  the  Stephensons,  Brunei,  A.  Maury, 
and  others,  rose  up  to  perfect  the  various  steam-machines  already 
known  and  in  use  ;  to  investigate  the  currents  of  the  ocean,  the 
different  qualities  of  its  waters,  its  depth  and  soundings,  in  order 
to  make  the  paths  of  the  deep  easier  and  surer  to  navigators. 
The  ingenuity  of  ship-builders  effected  a  revolution  in  naval  ar- 
chitecture, and  rendered  possible  the  construction  of  vessels  of 
from  ten  thousand  to  twenty-five  thousand  tons  burden.  Mer- 
chant companies  and  capitalists  arose  to  embrace  the  whole 
world  in  their  mighty  speculations,  studying  the  capabilities  of 
all  countries  for  trade,  the  most  desolate  as  well  as  the  most  in- 
viting, the  meanest  as  keenly  as  the  mightiest,  linking  the  whole 
world  in  one  vast  commercial  circle,  that  the  European  race 
might  be  borne  on  to  the  mercantile  conquest  of  the  universe  ; 
and  all  this  came  about,  doubtless,  to  effect  its  deeper  and  more 
permanent  moral  conquest  by  the  despised,  down-trodden,  starv- 
ing, dying  Irishman,  who  laid  claim  to  one  arm,  one  possession 
only — his  faith  and  the  blessing  of  the  Church. 

Was  not  the  Irish  exodus  intimately  connected  with  all  those 
events  ?  Was  it  not  one  of  the  mightiest  causes  of  all  those 
gigantic  enterprises  \ 

But  where  were  the  funds  to  be  found  for  such  immense  un- 
dertakings %  The  treasury  of  nations  is  continually  drained  of 
vast  sums  at  home,  and  dare  not  draw  away  a  part  of  its  metallic 
basis  sufficient  for  such  a  purpose.  Moreover,  it  is  limited,  and 
needs  the  precious  metals  as  a  solid  foundation  whereon  to  rest, 
or  the  fabric  built  upon  it  will  be  the  fabric  of  a  dream,  as  was 
that  of  Law  in  France  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  gold  and  silver  mines  of  Mexico  and  Peru  seem  exhausted  ; 
the  new  ones  of  the  Ural  Mountains  in  Northern  Asia,  of  the 
Atlantic  coast  of  North  America,  were  not  adequate  to  meet  the 
demands  of  such  mighty  operations. 

Suddenly,  in  the  year  1846,  a  Swiss  captain,  transformed  into 
a  California  settler,  while  endeavoring  to  turn  a  water-fall  in  his 
new  home  to  some  account,  discovers  gold-dust  in  the  sand.  As 
if  by  magic,  the  coast  of  California,  hitherto  neglected,  difficult 
of  access  at  the  time,  and  consequently  ignored  by  mankind, 
notwithstanding  its  wealth  in  mineral  and  vegetable  productions, 
becomes  at  once  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes,  the  hope  of  all  hearts, 
the  most  renowned  of  all  countries.  Thither  they  flock  in 
crowds  from  all  parts  of  Europe  and  America,  and  a  steady  flow 


THE  "EXODUS "  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


429 


of  seventy  million  dollars  annually  is  secured  as  a  basis  for  the 
new  designs  of  capitalists  and  merchants. 

Other  gold-fields  are  soon  discovered  all  along  the  American 
coast,  on  the  Pacific,  from  Lower  California  to  Alaska,  inviting 
men  to  go  thither  and  settle,  just  opposite  to  the  Asiatic  Con- 
tinent, separated  from  it  only  by  the  broad  but  easily-navigated 
Pacific  Ocean. 

Soon  also,  far  away  south  in  the  antipodes,  opposite  to  anoth- 
er portion  of  Asia,  rich  gold-fields  are  opened  up  in  the  newly- 
discovered  Continent  of  Australia,  attracting  immigration  toward 
another  spot,  whence  the  Asiatic  nations  may  also  be  reached 
with  greater  facility  and  dispatch. 

Whoever  believes  that  Providence  has  something  to  do  with 
the  affairs  of  men  ;  whoever  is  wise  enough  to  see  that  this  uni- 
verse is  not  the  result  of  chance,  and  that  its  destinies  are  ruled 
by  a  superior  power,  must  admit  that  when  events  as  unexpected 
as  they  are  unprepared  by  man  come  to  pass — events  which  are 
so  connected  together  as  to  reveal  the  workings  of  a  single  mind 
and  a  great  object  at  once,  foreshadowed  if  not  positively  fore- 
told, God  is  the  designer,  and  a  stronger  hand  is  at  work  than 
the  combined  power  of  men  and  devils  could  successfully  oppose. 
This  is  a  truth  which  was  not  unknown  to  Homer,  centuries  ago, 
when  he  described  Jove  holding  our  globe  suspended  in  space  at 
the  end  of  a  chain,  and  defying  all  the  inferior  gods  to  move  the 
world  in  a  direction  contrary  to  that  given  by  his  mighty  arm. 

The  image,  striking  and  poetical  as  it  is,  for  a  Christian  is 
too  material.  We  speak  more  correctly  when  we  say  that  Mind 
— the  Divine  Mind — is  the  great  invincible  and  invisible  Force 
of  which  all  material  forces  are  but  the  created  agents,  and  by 
which  all  inferior  minds  must  stand  or  fall,  conquer  or  fail.  A 
man  must  be  blind  with  that  incurable  blindness — of  will — who 
cannot  see  it  acting  in  and  on  the  universe,  and  even  controlling 
the  lower  designs  of  puny  intellects.  The  reverent  eye  which 
sees  the  vastness  of  the  plan,  the  multitude  of  its  agents,  aiding 
and  seconding  it  consciously  and  unconsciously,  recognizes  it, 
and  the  supreme  object  of  its  workings,  Love,  infinite  love. 

And  we  distinguish  with  grateful  surprise  all  those  circum- 
stances visibly  appearing  in  the  great  fact  which  has  just  been  so 
imperfectly  sketched,  and  which  will  come  home  to  us  still  more 
forcibly  when  the  workings  of  its  lesser  details  come  to  be  exam- 
ined.  Here,  for  instance,  at  the  moment  of  writing  these  lines 
(March,  1872)  we  learn  from  the  morning  newspapers  of  the  re- 
cent arrival  of  the  Japanese  embassy  at  San  Francisco  ;  that  its 
members  had  been  dispatched  to  this  country  to  study  European, 
or,  as  we  call  them,  Japhetic  institutions,  for  the  purpose  of  copy- 
ing and  adapting  them  to  their  own  wants.  The  embassy,  de- 
tained at  Salt  Lake  City  by  the  snow-blockade  on  the  Pacific  Rail- 


430 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


road,  refused  to  go  back,  temporarily,  to  California,  and  made  up 
their  mind  to  wait  in  Utah,  until  it  is  possible  for  them  to  proceed. 

Pacific  Railroad,  Salt  Lake  City,  San  Francisco,  Japanese 
embassy,  adoption  of  European  manners  by  the  Mikado  and 
daimios — who  can  fail  to  gather  from  these  words  and  details  the 
conception  of  means  to  an  end,  and  that  end  the  one  we  now 
begin  to  study  ? 

The  first  circumstance  coming  under  our  review  and  indica- 
tive of  a  loving  design  on  the  part  of  Providence,  a  circumstance 
not  marked  sufficiently  at  the  time,  is  the  preservation  by  the 
English  themselves  of  the  poor  remnants  of  the  Irish  race, 
which  the  first  working  of  the  plan  had  so  frightfully  decimated 
and  left  in  danger  of  being  utterly  wiped  out.  Had  they  disap- 
peared, would  J  aphetism  have  become  a  blessing  to  the  Asiatic 
nations  I  The  Catholic,  looking  abroad  and  casting  his  mind's 
eye  over  the  vast  European  field,  to  all  seeming  so  rich  in  every 
production,  yet  in  reality  so  sterile  morally,  peering  with  awe 
and  horror  into  the  Japhetic  caldron — for  such  it  is — seething 
and  bubbling  to  the  brim,  full  of  the  most  deadly  poisons  and 
noxious  substances,  ready  at  any  moment  to  overflow  in  infected 
waves  and  sweep  over  the  unfortunate  countries  which  look  to  it 
so  anxiously  for  blessings,  a  torrent  of  black  destruction,  spread- 
ing around  naught  but  desolation  and  barrenness — the  Catholic 
eye,  seeing  all  this,  can  find  but  one  answer  to  our  query.  The 
Asiatic  races  cannot  hope  to  be  benefited  by  the  introduction  of 
European  manners  among  them,  unless  the  same  great  move- 
ment carries  in  its  train  the  holy  Catholic  Church  :  and  as  that 
introduction  must  be  brought  about  by  English-speaking  leaders, 
the  only  English-speaking  Catholics  of  numerical  significance 
must  be  the  instruments  of  the  adorable  designs  of  Providence. 

That  this  assertion  may  not  appear  too  sweeping,  it  is  only 
enough  to  instance  the  example  of  India,  which  England  has 
held  long  enough  to  convert,  at  least  in  part,  had  she  so  desired 
and  been  moved  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  yet  to-day  India  stands  in 
a  worse  relation  toward  Protestantism  than  when  Protestantism 
in  the  name  of  Christianity,  but  in  the  person  of  a  British  trader, 
settled  down  in  its  midst.    What  good  has  Hindostan  derived  ? 

But,  at  this  very  moment,  the  whole  Irish  race  is  at  the  mercy 
of  the  English  Government  and  people.  Only  let  the  same 
kind  of  vessels  continue  to  be  dispatched  filled  with  Irish  emi- 
grants, and  the  whole  race  must  disappear  within  a  short  period, 
or  become  so  reduced  in  numbers  that  its  operations  as  a  race, 
on  a  large  scale,  will  be  unproductive  of  sufficient  results. 

And  it  is  well  to  mark  that  at  the  time  of  this  outpouring 
of  the  race,  as  long  before,  and  almost  constantly  since,  there 
were  Englishmen  rejoicing  at  the  glorious  result  which  death  by 
plague  and  famine  was  about  to  produce.    It  were  easy  to  quote 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


431 


many  a  barbarous  passage  from  the  London  Times,  expressive  of 
the  most  satanic  joy,  not  only  at  the  departure  of  the  Irish  from 
the  "  United  Kingdom,"  but  at  the  prospect  of  their  ultimate, 
or  rather  proximate  disappearance  out  of  the  world  altogether. 

Yet  it  was  the  same  English  Government  and  people  which, 
feeling,  let  us  hope,  some  compassion  at  the  sight  of  this  new 
woe  of  the  "  Niobe  of  nations,"  determined  to  try  and  save  her 
children,  as,  if  they  must  cast  them  out,  at  least  it  should  be 
alive  and  full  of  health  on  a  foreign  shore. 

Laws,  therefore,  were  passed,  regulating  the  quantity  and 
quality  of  provisions,  particularly  of  drinkable  water,  the  num- 
ber of  the  crew  and  working-men,  the  ventilation  of  the  vessel, 
the  number  of  passengers  to  be  received,  etc. 

Still,  these  first  attempts  at  humanity  seem  to  have  been 
rather  faint-hearted,  as  the  following  passage  from  Mr.  Maguire's 
"  Irish  in  America,"  showing  how  they  were  carried  out,  and 
how  inadequate  was  the  remedy  applied  in  1848,  will  explain  : 

"  The  ships,  of  which  such  glowing  accounts  were  read  on 
Sunday  by  the  Irish  peasant  near  the  chapel-gate,  were  but  too 
often  old  and  unseaworthy,  insufficient  in  accommodation,  not 
having  even  an  adequate  supply  of  water  for  a  long  voyage,  and, 
to  render  matters  worse,  they,  as  a  rule,  were  shamefully  under- 
handed. True,  the  provisions  and  the  crew  must  have  passed 
muster  in  Liverpool ;  .  .  .  but  there  were  tenders  and  lighters 
to  follow  the  vessel  out  to  sea  ;  and  over  the  sides  of  that  vessel 
several  of  the  mustered  men  would  pass,  and  casks,  and  boxes, 
and  sacks  would  be  expeditiously  hoisted,  to  the  amazement  of 
the  simple  people  who  looked  on  at  the  strange  and  unaccount- 
able operation.  And,  thus,  the  great  ship,  with  its  living 
freight,  would  turn  her  prow  toward  the  West,  depending  on  her 
male  passengers,  as  on  so  many  impressed  seamen,  to  handle 
her  ropes  or  to  work  her  pumps  in  case  of  accident.  What  with 
bad  or  scanty  provisions,  scarcity  of  water,  severe  hardship,  and 
long  confinement  in  a  foul  den,  ship-fever  reaped  yet  a  glorious 
harvest  between-decks,  as  frequent  splashes  of  shot-weighted 
corpses  into  the  deep  but  too  terribly  testified.  "Whatever  the 
cause,  the  deaths  on  board  the  British  ships  enormously  exceeded 
the  mortality  on  the  ships  of  any  other  country.  According  to 
the  records  of  the  Commissioners  of  Emigration  for  the  State  of 
New  York,  the  quota  of  sick  per  thousand  stood  thus  in  1848  : 
British  vessels,  30  ;  American,  9f  ;  German,  8J-.  It  was  yet  no 
unusual  occurrence  for  the  survivor  of  a  family  of  ten  or  twelve 
to  land  alone,  bewildered  and  broken-hearted,  on  the  wharf  at 
New  York  ;  the  rest,  the  family,  parents,  and  children,  had  been 
swallowed  in  the  sea,  their  bodies  marking  the  course  of  the  ship 
to  the  New  World." 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  those  first  English  regulations,  by 


432 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


which  British  ships  were  to  pass  muster  at  Liverpool  before  sail- 
ing, were  not  very  efficient ;  the  figures  of  mortality  quoted  by 
Mr.  Maguire  are  too  eloquent ;  and  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  us 
to  be  able  to  say  with  certainty  that  the  more  stringent  and  bet- 
ter  executed  laws  afterward  enforced  did  not  proceed  from  the 
Commission  of  Emigration,  which  originated  in  New  York  with 
some  generous-hearted  Irish-Americans. 

Our  readers  will  have  noticed  that,  even  in  1848,  with  all  the 
apparent  desire  on  the  part  of  England  to  save  the  remnants  of 
the  Irish  nation,  the  mortality  on  board  British  ships  was  more 
than  three  times  that  on  board  American  vessels,  and  nearly  four 
times  greater  than  that  on  board  German  ships.  Why  this  dif- 
ference ?    And  why  should  it  be  so  enormous  ? 

It  is  possible  that  to  the  Legislature  of  New  York  State 
chiefly,  and  soon  after  to  the  Confess  of  the  United  States  at 
Washington,  which  enacted  stringent  laws  for  the  protection  of 
immigrants  at  sea,  belong  the  chief  honor  of  saving  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  Irish  lives,  and  that  England,  whether  urged  by  the 
effects  of  good  example,  or  for  very  shame,  soon  followed  in  their 
wake. 

But,  whatever  the  cause  may  have  been,  it  is  a  heart-felt 
pleasure  to  record  the  fact  that  from  1849,  when  an  act  of  Par- 
liament, entitled  the  "  Passengers  Act,"  imposed  on  ship-owners 
and  captains  of  vessels  strict  conditions  for  the  welfare  of  emi- 
grants, government  control  on  this  subject  became  every  year 
more  immediate  and  severe. 

Not  only  were  the  vessels,  provisions,  water,  medicine  chests, 
etc.,  more  carefully  examined,  but  the  passengers  themselves 
were  compelled  to  undergo  a  careful  inspection  as  to  their  health 
and  wardrobe. 

And,  a  thing  which  had  never  been  done  before,  the  space 
allotted  to  each  emigrant  on  deck  and  between-decks  was  deter- 
mined and  subjected  to  serious  control,  so  that  no  overcrowding 
of  passengers  should  take  place.  The  penalties,  also,  on  delin- 
quents became  even  severe  ;  heavy  fines  were  imposed,  and  in 
some  cases  transportation  to  a  penal  settlement  was  decreed 
against  the  more  offensive  outrages  on  humanity. 

If  all  abuses  failed  to  be  corrected  by  such  laws,  it  is  because 
the  most  stringent  enactments  can,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent, 
always  be  evaded  by  those  desirous  of  evading  them  ;  but  there 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  legislators  were  honest  in 
their  intent  of  remedying  the  glaring  evils  which  previously 
obtained,  and,  to  a  great  extent,  their  efforts  met  with  success, 
as  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  the  mortality  on  board  of  British 
vessels  has  shown  yearly  a  remarkable  diminution  since  that 
time.  According  to  the  u  Twenty -fourth  General  Keport,"  the 
mortality  was  :  In.  1854,  0.74  per  cent.,  already  a  very  remark- 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


433 


able  diminution  on  previous  averages  ;  in  I860,  it  was  reduced 
to  0.15  per  cent.  This  was  the  percentage  for  vessels  going  to 
North  America  only. 

The  first  operation  of  the  missionary  people  was  to  plant  the 
living  tree  of  Catholicism  in  the  United  States,  and  so  power- 
fully forward  its  growth,  that  other  spiritual  plants  of  a  noxious 
kind,  and  weeds  that  go  by  the  name  of  creeds,  should  gradually 
be  choked  up,  finally,  let  us  hope,  to  disappear.  While  speaking 
on  this  subject,  and  laying  before  the  reader  the  necessary  details, 
we  desire  not  to  be  held  forgetful  of  the  efforts  made  in  a  like 
direction  by  Catholic  immigrants  of  other  nationalities.  A  word 
has  already  been  said  of  the  early  influence  of  the  French  in  the 
North  and  of  the  Spaniards  in  the  South,  in  establishing  the 
Church  in  North  America.  The  German  children  of  the  true 
Church,  though  at  first  not  so  conspicuous,  have  for  a  long  time 
taken,  and  are  now  particularly  taking,  an  active  part  in  the 
dissemination  of  the  faith,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  with 
the  daily  increase  of  German  immigration,  their  large  numbers 
must  in  course  of  time  make  a  lasting  impression  on  the  terri- 
tory where  they  settle.  But  the  French,  the  Spaniards;  and  the 
Germans,  must  forget  their  language  before  they  become  widely 
useful  in  the  great  work  before  them  ;  and  thus  the  Irish  form 
the  only  English-speaking  people  on  whom  the  brunt  of  the 
battle  must  fall.    Moreover,  we  treat  only  of  the  Irish  race. 

The  wonderful  history  of  the  spread  of  Catholicity  in  North 
America  by  the  Irish,  in  the  northern  part  of  the  United  States 
particularly,  would  call  for  an  array  of  details  which  it  would,  be 
impossible  to  furnish  here  in  extenso.  An  imperfect  sketch  must 
suffice. 

First  comes  the  consideration  that,  when  the  wave  of  immigra- 
tion touched  the  continent,  it  might  have  been  feared  that,  by  its 
absorption  into  a  dry  and  parched  soil,  the  aggregate  loss  would 
have  reduced  to  a  mere  nothing  the  ultimate  gain.  There  were 
no  churches  for  the  new  worshippers,  no  priests  to  administer  to 
them  the  sacraments  of  Christ,  no  Catholic  school-teachers  to 
train  their  children.  That  is  to  say,  these  means  of  preservation 
and  of  propagation  were  so  few  and  so  far  between,  that  many 
of  the  newly-arrived  immigrants  were  forced  to  establish  them- 
selves in  places  where  they  could  find  none  of  those,  to  them, 
priceless  advantages. 

The  spiritual  dearth  was  not  indeed  so  great  as  that  pre- 
viously described.  The  zeal  of  bishops  and  priests,  and  teachers 
from  regular  orders,  had  been  so  active  in  its  labors,  that,  aided 
by  the  liberty  which  the  institutions  of  the  country  afforded, 
results,  astonishing  indeed,  had  already  rewarded  their  efforts. 
But,  after  all,  what  were  these  compared  with  the  demands  so 
suddenly  laid  upon  them  by  such  a  rapid  increase  of  numbers  I 
28 


4:34 


TITE  " EXODUS"  AXD  ITS  EFFECTS. 


It  might  be  said  with  truth  of  multitudes  of  immigrants,  that  the 
position  in  which  they  then  found  themselves  was  very  little 
different  from  that  of  their  predecessors  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century. 

As  late  as  1S34,  Archbishop  Purcell,  of  Cincinnati,  wrote : 
"  There  are  places  in  which  there  are  Catholics  of  twenty  years 

A.  V  9/ 

of  age,  who  have  not  yet  had  an  opportunity  of  performing  one 
single  public  act  of  their  religion.  How  many  fall  sick  and  die 
without  the  sacraments !  How  many  children  are  brought  up 
in  ignorance  and  vice !  How  many  persons  marry  out  of  the 
Church,  and  thus  weaken  the  bonds  that  held  them  to  it!" — 
{Annals  of  the  Propagation  of  Faith,  Vol.  viii.) 

To  the  same  annals,  three  years  later,  Dr.  England,  of  Charles- 
ton, sent  the  long  letter  in  which  he  detailed  the  innumerable 
losses  sustained  by  the  Church  in  America  in  consequence  of  the 
want  of  spiritual  assistance.  The  letter  was,  in  fact,  a  cry  of 
anguish  wrung:  from  him  bv  the  sight  he  witnessed. 

Such  was  the  universal  feeling  among  those  who  could  right- 
ly  appreciate  the  fatal  consequences  of  the  rash  of  Catholics  to 
the  New  World  without  any  provision  prepared  for  their  recep- 
tion. And  yet  all  these  laments  and  apprehensions  preceded  the 
vast  inpouring  of  immigrants  subsequent  to  the  vear  1846. 
What  must  have  been  the  consequent  losses  then  ?  Yet,  looking 
now,  in  1872,  at  the  present  state  of  the  Church  in  the  Union, 
who  can  say  that  this  inpouring  and  rush,  unprepared  as  the 
country  was  for  its  reception,  was  not  one  of  the  greatest  means 
devised  bv  Providence,  not  only  for  establishing  the  Catholic 
Church  in  this  country  for  all  time,  but  likewise  as  a  prepara- 
tion for  further  developments,  not  only  on  this  continent,  but  on 
the  part  of  many  a  nation  now  sitting  in  u  the  shadow  of  death ! " 
Deplorable,  indeed,  were  the  losses,  but  permanent  and  wonder- 
ful the  gain. 

The  first  effect  of  the  great  calamitv  which  occurred  along  the 
St.  Lawrence  and  its  tributaries,  in  1847,  was  to  reduce  the 
immigration  to  Canada  to  insignificant  numbers,  and  propor- 
tionately increase  that  to  the  United  States  in  a  quadruple  ratio. 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  in  Xew  England,  and  the  great 
States  of  Xew  York  and  Pennsylvania,  were  now  the  chief  places 
of  resort  for  the  new-comers ;  and  from  Xew  York,  principally, 
they  began  to  pour,  in  a  long,  steady  stream,  away  by  the  Erie 
Canal,  westward  to  the  great  lakes. 

All  along  these  lines,  congregations  were,  providentially, 
alreadv  formed ;  and,  in  the  passage  of  the  stream,  they  were 
immediately,  as  by  magic,  increased,  in  some  instances,  to  a  ten- 
fold proportion.  The  Tabors  of  the  clergy  were  correspondingly 
multiplied,  and  efforts  were  immediately  made  to  obtain  new 
recruits  for  its  ranks.   Then  appeared  a  very  strange  fact,  which, 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


435 


at  the  time,  was  remarked  upon  by  everybody,  but  has  never 
been  satisfactorily  explained.  Wherever  the  number  of  worship- 
pers in  a  church  induced  the  chief  pastors  to  have  another  con- 
structed in  the  neighborhood,  upon  the  completion  of  the  new 
edifice,  the  old  one  seemed  to  suffer  no  diminution  in  attendance, 
and  the  congregation  attending  the  new  one  gave  no  evidence 
of  having  hitherto  been  imcared  for.  This  very  remarkable  fact 
was  of  such  frequent  occurrence  that  it  could  not  be  a  delusion, 
or  an  exceptional  case  having  its  origin  in  some  extraordinary 
cause ;  it  was  evidently  a  providential  dispensation,  akin,  in  a 
spiritual  sense,  to  the  miraculous  multiplication  of  loaves,  twice 
mentioned  in  the  Gospel. 

There  have  certainly  been  numerous  examples  of  this,  in  the 
city  of  Kew  York  particularly,  for  more  than  twenty  years ;  and 
probably  the  same  thing  is  occurring  at  the  time  of  the  present 
writing. 

Then,  another  fact  occurred,  deplored  by  many,  chiefly  by 
Mr.  Maguire,  in  the  interesting  work  already  quoted  from,  yet, 
evidentlv  of  a  providential  character  also,  and  consequently 
eminently  fruitful,  and,  it  may  be  said,  adorable  in  its  depth. 
The  Catholic  immigrants,  although  in  their  own  country  agricul- 
turists for  the  most  part,  forgot  the  tilling  of  the  soil  as  soon  as 
they  reached  their  new  home,  and  settled  down  in  great  numbers 
in  all  the  large  cities,  on  the  line  they  pursued  toward  the  "West. 
Many  special  evils  resulted  from  this,  detailed  at  length  by  those 
whose  wonder  it  excited,  and  who  strove,  for  excellent  motives, 
to  thwart  this  providential  movement.  But  the  immense  o-ood 
which  immediately  followed  from  it,  and  which,  within  a  short 
time,  was  to  be  greatly  increased,  was  never  mentioned  in  reply 
to  the  reasons  advanced  by  these  well-meaning  complainants. 
The  first  result  of  it  was  the  sudden  and  necessary  creation  of 
many  new  episcopal  sees  in  all  large  cities,  where  churches  were 
being  rapidly  built,  or  had  already  been  erected  in  astonishing 
numbers. 

Suppose  the  Catholics  had,  following  the  old  bent,  turned  them- 
selves chiefly  to  the  tillage  of  the  soil,  and  buried  themselves  away 
in  scattered  country  villages  and  farms,  how  long  would  the  crea- 
tion of  those  new  sees  have  been  delayed  ?  W ho  is  ignorant  of 
the  efiect  of  a  new  see  on  the  propagation  of  Catholicity  ?  Cities 
which  otherwise  would  have  numbered  among  their  population 
only  a  few  hundred  Catholics,  scarcely  sufficient  for  the  filling  of 
one  small  edifice,  saw  at  once  one-third,  one-half,  or  even  the 
larger  portion  of  their  population  clamoring  for  a  Catholic  bishop, 
ana  all  the  institutions  a  bishopric  brings  in  its  train.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  furnish  examples  of  this  ;  they  are  around  us. 

Yet  one  difficulty  seems  to  cast  some  doubt  on  this  view  of 
the  subject,  and  strengthen  the  opposition  of  those  who  ardently 


436 


THE  "EXODUS "  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


advocated  the  country  as  the  true  home  for  Irish  Catholics  ;  and, 
as  the  point  involves  a  universal  interest,  it  is  better  to  discuss 
it  at  once  in  its  chief  bearings. 

At  the  time  when  those  wonderful  events  were  being  enacted, 
any  one  opening  a  copy  of  those  general  State  Directories,  with 
which  New  England  is  particularly  blessed,  wherein  not  only 
the  great  commercial  and  industrial  enterprises  of  each  State  are 
enrolled,  but  also  correct  lists  of  the  educational  establishments 
and  various  churches  of  all  cities,  towns,  and  villages,  are  given 
— a  cursory  glance,  even,  would  show  him  the  striking  fact  that, 
as  far  as  the  great  centres  of  population  were  concerned,  Catholic 
churches,  educational  establishments,  and  primary  schools  were 
found  in  respectable  numbers  ;  but  many  a  page  had  to  be 
turned  when  the  reader  came  to  places  of  lesser  importance,  to 
rural  populations  chiefly,  before  he  met  with  any  indication  of 
the  Catholic  Church  entering  yet  upon  that  large  country  do- 
main. This  experience  was  encountered  by  the  writer  at  the 
time,  and  caused  him  a  moment  of  doubt. 

But  beyond  the  reflection  that,  in  matters  of  this  kind  (of  the 
propagation  of  a  doctrine  or  a  creed),  the  first  thing  to  be  looked 
to  is  the  centre,  and  that  this,  once  mastered,  will  in  course  of 
time  draw  under  its  influence  the  outer  circles  ;  that  all  things 
cannot  be  effected  at  once,  and  the  best  thing  to  be  done  is  to 
begin  with  the  most  important ;  that,  moreover,  those  statistics 
are  often  incorrect  with  respect  to  Catholic  matters,  whether 
from  malicious  design,  or  inadvertence,  or  want  of  knowledge, 
on  subjects  to  which  the  compilers  attached  very  little  impor- 
tance, so  that,  if  their  statements  be  compared  with  Catholic 
oflicial  intelligence  with  regard  to  the  same  places,  it  will  be 
found  that  many  towns  and  villages  which,  according  to  the 
State  Directories  would  seem  to  have  been  altogether  forgotten 
by  the  Church,  were  actually  in  her  possession,  at  least  by 
periodical  or  occasional  visits ;  apart  from  all  these  considera  • 
tions,  there  is  one  more  important  remark  to  be  made,  which 
includes  in  its  bearing  not  only  the  present  point  of  considera- 
tion, but,  it  may  be  said,  the  whole  life  of  the  Church  from  the 
beginning ;  so  that  it  is  really  a  law  of  her  birth,  existence,  and 
propagation. 

To  illustrate  our  meaning,  let  us  see  how  the  Christian  re- 
ligion first  forced  its  way  in  heathen  lands,  throughout  the  whole 
Roman  Empire,  whether  in  its  Oriental  division  where  Greek  was 
spoken,  or  among  its  Western,  Latin-speaking  populations. 

All  the  apostles  fixed  their  sees  in  the  largest  or  most  im- 
portant cities  of  the  ancient  world  *  St.  Peter,  under  the  special 
guidance  of  God,  taking  possession  of  the  capital  and  mistress  of 
the  whole.  All  the  bishops  ordained  by  the  first  apostles  did  the 
same  by  their  direction ;  and  it  is  needless  to  add  that  the  like 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


437 


law  has  been  followed  down  to  our  own  times  whenever  the 
Church  has  had  to  spread  herself  in  a  new  country. 

In  accordance  with  this  plan,  the  cities  of  the  Roman  world 
were  the  first  to  be  evangelized,  and  their  populations  were  con- 
verted with  greater  or  less  difficulty,  according  to  the  dispositions 
of  the  inhabitants,  before  almost  an  effort  had  been  made  for  the 
conversion  of  the  rural  populations,  except  as  they  happened  to 
come  in  the  way  of  the  "  laborers  in  the  vineyard."  Hence 
the  result,  so  well  known  :  heathenism  remained  rooted  in  the 
country  for  a  much  longer  time  than  in  the  cities,  so  that  the 
heathen  were  generally  called  pagans — -pagani — as  if  it  were 
enough,  when  desiring  to  convey  the  intimation  that  a  man  was  a 
worshipper  of  idols,  to  designate  him  as  a  dweller  in  the  country.1 

And  if  the  word  "  pagans  "  became  synonymous  with  hea- 
thens in  all  European  countries,  it  is  a  proof  that  the  fact  under- 
lying the  name  was  universal  wherever  Christianity  spread.  It 
is  known,  moreover,  that  the  dissemination  of  the  Gospel  in 
those  rural  districts  was  a  work  of  centuries,  and  that,  for  nearly 
a  thousand  years  after  Christ,  pagans  were  to  be  found  in  vil- 
lages of  countries  already  Christian. 

The  fundamental  reason  which  governs  and  regulates  these 
strange  facts  is  that  already  given,  namely,  that  Christianity — 
that  is,  Catholicity — is  a  groivth,  and  follows  the  laws  of  every 
thing  that  grows.  True,  its  first  increase  is  from  without,  by 
the  conversion  of  infidels  or  erring  men  ;  but  even  in  that  first 
stage  of  its  existence,  its  growth  is  the  faster  where  the  numbers 
are  greater ;  hence  its  establishment  invariably  in  large  cities^ 
But  when  it  has  passed  beyond  this  first  stage,  it  increases  from 
within,  like  all  growths,  and  the  work  is  accomplished  by  the 
increase  of  families  agglomerated  in  the  same  large  towns. 

How  true  is  it  that  the  Church,  once  firmly  planted  in  the 
midst  of  one  of  those  agglomerations  of  men  called  cities,  is 
sure  in  the  end  to  invade  the  whole  as  "  the  yeast  that  leavens 
the  whole !  "  How  easy  is  it  to  see  that  in  the  course  of  time 
those  cities  of  the  Union,  among  which  a  large  proportion  of 
Catholics  is  found,  will  belong  almost  exclusively  to  the  true 
Church,  if  for  no  other  reason  by  the  births  in  families,  even 
supposing  that  the  flow  of  immigration  should  finally  cease  !  If 
any  one  entertains  some  doubt  on  this  point,  he  has  only  to 
consult  the  records  containing  the  number  of  children  baptized 
in  her  bosom,  and  compare  it  with  the  corresponding  number  in 
families  still  outside  her. 

Hence  the  really  astonishing  fact,  whose  truth  is  recognized 
to-day  in  all  the  Northern  States  along  the  Atlantic  coast,  that 
suddenly  almost  in  the  cities  of  New  England,  for  instance,  where 

1  Another  meaning  is  given  to  the  word  paganus  by  some  writers ;  but  the  old 
and  common  interpretation  is  the  surest,  and  is  confirmed  by  the  best  authorities. 


±38 


TIIE  "EXODUS "  AKD  ITS  EFFECTS. 


the  number  of  Catholics  was  simply  insignificant,  they  took  an 
apparently  unaccountable  prominence,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few 
years,  increasing  steadily  by  birth  as  well  as  by  immigration,  the 
fact  became  the  most  curious  though  evident  of  the  times,  com- 
pletely changing  the  moral  and  social  aspect  of  the  country,  and 
foretelling  still  greater  changes  to  come.  For,  in  the  face  of  this 
wonderful  increase  to  the  ranks  of  Catholicity,  appears  another 
significant  fact,  but  very  different  as  to  direction  and  energy — 
the  gradual  disappearance  of  names  once  prominent  in  those 
parts,  and  the  daily  narrowing  area  of  Protestantism  in  the  nu- 
merous sects  of  which  it  is  composed. 

At  the  same  time  a  great  danger  was  averted  (or  at  least  won- 
derfully lessened  and  modified),  from  the  whole  country,  by  the- 
settlement  of  those  immigrants  in  the  large  centres  of  population. 
The  manufacturing  enterprises,  which  at  that  time  assumed  such 
vast  developments  in  Korth  America,  received  among  their  work- 
ers, men  and  women,  a  large  proportion  of  Catholics,  and  the 
fear  of  future  political  and  social  peril  to  the  peace  and  security 
of  society  at  large  could  never,  on  this  continent,  reach  the  ex- 
treme point  witnessed  in  Europe  to-day.  The  great  danger  of 
the  European  future  nestles  principally  in  those  vast  hives  of  in- 
dustry with  which  that  continent  abounds.  Our  eves  have  wit- 
nessed,  our  ears  have  been  affrighted  at  those  stupendous  plans 
and  projects  in  which,  not  only  the  great  questions  of  capital  and 
labor  are  involved,  but  the  whole  fabric  of  society  is  threatened 
with  downfall.  Religion,  government,  property,  the  family,  the 
state — all  those  great  principles  and  facts  on  which  the  security 
of  mankind  depends,  enter  now  into  the  programme  of  artisans 
and  laborers  enlisted  in  gigantic  and  many-ramified  secret  socie- 
ties, while  the  whole  world  trembles  at  the  awful  aspect  of  this 
unwelcome  phantom,  that  no  government,  however  powerful, 
can  lay. 

Suppose  that  on  this  continent  the  numerous  bands  of  work- 
ing-men, so  actively  engaged  everywhere  in  developing  the  re- 
sources of  the  country,  should  aim  at  extending  their  solicitude 
beyond  their  immediate  and  material  welfare  to  the  reformation 
and  reorganization  of  mankind  on  a  new  basis  ;  and  suppose  that, 
with  this  aim  in  view,  they  should  combine  with  those  of  Europe, 
and  enter  into  an  unholy  compact  with  them,  what  hope  or  refuge 
would  remain  in  the  whole  world  for  harmony,  peace,  justice, 
and  happiness?  And  when  the  great  upheaval,  so  generally  ex- 
pected in  Europe,  and  which  sooner  or  later  must  take  place, 
shall  come  to  pass,  where  could  those  men  fly,  who  cannot  but 
look  upon  those  satanic  schemes  with  horror?  "Whereon  this 
earth  would  be  found  a  spot  consecrated  to  the  acknowledgment 
of  the  only  social  principles  which  can  secure  the  real  good  of 
mankind,  by  rendering  safe  the  stability  of  society  ? 


t 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS.  439 

It  is  our  firm  belief  that  the  vast  number  of  true  children  of 
the  Church,  occupied  honestly  and  actively  in  the  many  factories 
of  the  North,  will,  when  the  contest  commences,  even  before  it 
commences,  when  the  question  of  connecting  the  "  unions "  of 
this  country  in  a  band  of  brotherhood  with  those  of  Europe 
shall  be  gravely  mooted,  make  their  voices  loudly  and  unmis- 
takably heard  on  the  right  side. 

Enough  has  now  been  said  on  the  locality  chosen  by  prefer- 
ence as  the  dwelling-place  of  the  Irish  immigrants  at  the  period 
under  consideration.  Let  us  now  see  those  armies  of  new-comers 
at  work.  They  have  been  called  a  missionary  people  ;  let  us  see 
how  they  understand  their  u  mission." 

In  this  new  country  every  thing  had  to  be  done  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  religion,  education,  help  for  the  poor,  the  aged,  the 
infirm,  on  a  lasting  and  sufficiently  broad  basis.  And,  strange 
to  remark,  it  was  found  that  the  previous  persecutions  they  had 
undergone  fitted  them  admirably  for  their  work,  not  only  by 
giving  them  a  strong  faith,  the  true  foundation  ot  Christian 
energy,  but  in  a  manner  more  curious,  if  not  more  effective.  It 
fitted  them  to  give  money  freely  and  abundantly,  poor  as  they 
were  !  One  may  smile  incredulously  at  the  conceit ;  but  it  has 
become  a  most  powerful  and  incontestable  fact. 

Suppose  the  Irish  never  to  have  been  persecuted  in  their  own 
country :  suppose  that  they  had  found  there  a  benevolent  gov- 
ernment to  supply  them  with  churches,  schools,  hospitals — homes 
for  the  poor — every  thing  that  they,  as  Catholics,  could  desire. 
Suppose  them  to  have  been  in  a  similar  position  with  the  French- 
men, Spaniards,  and  Italians,  of  those  days,  how  bitterly  would 
they  have  felt  the  inconvenience  of  building  all  these  things  up 
for  themselves  in  their  new  homes  with  the  labor  of  their  own 
hands,  by  their  own  individual  efforts,  unaided  by  the  govern- 
ment! Their  ardor  would  have  been  damped,  their  energy 
cramped,  their  inclination  to  give  would  have  fallen  far  below 
the  necessities  of  the  time  :  for  money  was  sorely  needed — no 
niggard  offerings,  but  immense  sums. 

But  happily — happily  in  the  result,  not  in  the  fact — not  only 
had  the  British  Government  never  done.any  thing  of  the  kind 
for  them  in  their  old  home ;  not  only,  on  the  contrary,  had  it 
been  particularly  careful  to  rob  them  of  all  the  buildings  and  es- 
tates left  by  their  ancestors  for  those  great  objects ;  but,  until 
very  recently,  the  passing  of  the  Emancipation  Act  of  1S29,  it 
had  studiously  and  most  persistently  hindered  them  from  doing 
voluntarily  for  themselves  what  it  refused  to  do  for  them.  There 
were  numerous  penal  statutes  enacted,  in  the  course  of  two  cen- 
turies, to  prevent  them  from  building  churches,  opening  schools, 
erecting  asylums  and  hospitals  of  their  own,  nay,  from  possess- 
ing consecrated  graveyards  for  their  dead.     Thus  did  fanatic 


±40 


THE  "EXODUS "  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


hatred  pursue  them  even  to  the  grave,  and,  as  far  as  it  could,  be- 
yond the  gates  of  death.  Every  one  had  to  surrender  the  mor- 
tal remains  of  his  relatives  to  the  Protestant  minister  for  burial ; 
as  though  what  the  government  called  its  religion  would  snatch 
from  them  whatever  it  could  lay  hands  on-  the  body  at  least 
since  the  soul  had  escaped  and  passed  beyond  its  reach. 

But  in  their  new  country  they  found  every  thing  altered. 
Not  only  was  prohibition  of  this  kind  utterly  unknown,  but 
there  existed  there  the  greatest  amount  of  liberty  ever  enjoyed 
by  man  for  acting  in  concert  with  a  religious,  educational,  or 
charitable  object  in  view.  ~No  law  devised  by  the  old  Greek 
republics,  by  the  Roman  fisc,  by  modern  European  intermeddling 
was  ever  attempted  in  the  country  which  with  justice  boasted  o 
being  the  "  asylum  of  the  oppressed."  Thus  as  the  liberty  so> 
long  denied  to  the  Irish  was  at  last  opened  up,  as  no  barrier  ex- 
isted to  cramp  and  confine  the  natural  generosity  of  their 
hearts,  no  sooner  did  they  find  that  they  might  contribute  as 
they  chose  to  those  great  and  holy  objects,  than  they  rushed  at 
the  chances  offered  them  with  what  looked  like  recklessness. 

We  hope  that  the  reader  may  understand,  from  this,  oui 
meaning  in  saying  that  persecution  had  admirably  fitted  them 
for  the  mighty  work  that  lay  before  them.  It  was  the  first  time 
for  centuries  that  they  were  allowed  to  give  for  such  sacred  pur- 
poses. 

Another  thing  which  disposed  them  toward  it  was,  the  linger- 
ing fondness  for  the  old  customs  of  clanship,  still  harbored  in  their 
inmost  soul,  never  entirely  dead  and  ready  to  revive  whenever 
an  opportunity  presented  itself.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  this  ; 
the  great  adjuration  of  the  clansman  to  his  chieftain — "  Spend 
me,  but  defend  me  " — tended  wonderfully  to  consecrate  in  theii 
eyes  the  act  of  giving  and  giving  constantly,  as  though  theii 
purse  could  never  be  exhausted.  The  chieftain  has  been  replaced 
by  the  bishop,  the  priest,  the  educator ;  the  nobility  has  gone, 
but  these  have  come ;  and  unconsciously  perhaps,  but  none  the 
less  really,  does  this  feeling  lie  at  the  bottom  of  their  hearts, 
which  are  ever  ready  to  burst  out  with  the  old  expression,  though 
in  other  form :  "  Spend  me,  eat  me  out,  but  help  my  soul,  and 
save  my  children." 

This  feeling  has  always  run  in  the  blood  of  the  race.  St. 
Paul  long  ago  detected  it  in  the  Galatians,  a  branch  of  the  Cel- 
tic tribes,  when  he  wrote  to  them :  "  You  received  me  as  an  angel 
of  God,  even  as  Christ  Jesus.  ...  I  bear  you  witness  that,  if  it 
could  be  done,  you  would  have  plucked  out  your  own  eyes,  and 
given  them  to  me." — Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  iv.  15. 

Few,  perhaps,  have  reflected  seriously  on  the  large  sums  re- 
quired for  the  establishment  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  so  vast  a 
country,  witli  all  her  adjunct  institutions ;  therefore  the  stupen 


TIIE  "EXODUS "  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


441 


dons  result  has  scarcely  struck  those  who  have  witnessed  and 
lived  in  the  midst  of  it.  The  same  is  the  case,  though  on  a  much 
smaller  scale,  with  respect  to  the  money  sent  back  to  Ireland  by 
newly-arrived  immigrants.  People  were  aware  that  the  Irish, 
women  as  well  as  men,  were  in  the  habit  of  forwarding  drafts  of 
one,  two,  or  three  pounds  to  their  relatives  and  friends,  but  in 
such  small  amounts  that  the  whole  could  not  reach  a  very  high 
figure.  But  when  it  came  to  be  discovered  that  many  banking 
associations  were  drawing  large  dividends  from  the  operation, 
that  new  banks  were  continually  being  opened  which  looked  to 
the  profit  to  be  derived  from  such  transmission  as  their  chief 
means  of  support,  some  curious  people  set  to  work  collecting  in- 
formation on  the  subject  and  instituting  inquiries,  when  it  was 
found  that  the  aggregate  sum  amounted  to  millions,  and  would 
hav^e  become  a  serious  item  in  the  specie  exports  of  the  country, 
if  what  was  transmitted  did  not  in  the  main  come  back  with 
those  to  whom  it  had  been  forwarded. 

So  was  it,  but  in  much  larger  proportions  with  respect  to  the 
amounts  annually  spent  in  the  purchase  of  real  estate,  the  build- 
ing of  churches,  schools,  asylums,  hospitals,  for  the  support  of 
clergymen,  school-teachers,  clerks,  officials,  servants,  which  were 
called  for  all  at  once,  over  the  surface  of  an  extensive  territory, 
for  the  service  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Catholics  arriving 
yearly  with  the  intention  of  settling  permanently  in  the  country. 
Could  the  full  statistics  be  furnished,  they  would  excite  the  sur- 
prise of  all ;  the  few  details  which  we  would  be  enabled  to  gather 
from  directories,  newspapers,  the  reports  of  witnesses,  and  other  ■ 
sources,  could  give  but  a  faint  idea  of  the  whole,  and  are  conse- 
quently better  omitted. 

One  single  observation  will  produce  a  more  lasting  impres- 
sion on  the  reader's  mind  than  long  statistics,  and  the  enumera- 
tion of  buildings  and  other  undertakings.  It  is  a  fact,  without 
the  least  tinge  of  exaggeration,  that  in  the  States  of  Pennsylva- 
nia, New  Jersey,  New  York,  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  Ohio, 
Indiana,  Illinois,  Iowa,  Missouri,  Wisconsin,  and  several  other 
Western  States,  nearly  every  clergyman,  who  had  the  care  of  a 
single  parish  before  1840,  if  alive  to-day,  could  show  in  his  for- 
mer district  from  ten  to  twenty  parishes,  each  with  its  own  pas- 
tor and  church,  now  flourishing,  and  attached  to  each  a  much 
larger  number  of  useful  educational  and  charitable  establishments 
than  he  could  have  boasted  of  in  his  original  charge.  Let  one 
reflect  on  this,  and  then  imagine  to  himself  the  sums  requisite  to 
purchase  such  an  amount  of  real  estate,  for  the  erection  of  so 
many  edifices,  and  for  placing  on  an  efficient  footing  so  many 
different  establishments. 

It  is  true  that,  to-day,  a  number  of  these  institutions  are  still 
in  debt ;  but,  if  the  list  of  what  is  actually  paid  for  be  made  out, 


*42 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


and  separated  from  what  still  remains  indebted,  the  result  would 
stand  as  a  most  wonderful  fact. 

The  question  will  naturally  present  itself,  "How  was  it  possi- 
ble for  newly-arrived  immigrants,  who  often  landed  without  a 
penny  in  their  pockets,  to  become  all  at  once  60  easy  in  their 
circumstances  as  to  be  enabled  to  contribute,  so  generously  and 
enormously,  to  so  gigantic  an  enterprise  8 "  The  details  in  reply 
to  this  might  be  given  very  simply  and  satisfactorily ;  but,  as  it 
is  a  real  work  01  God,  who  always  acts  simply  and  satisfac- 
torily, though  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  deepest  attention  and 
gratitude,  it  is  proper  to  examine  the  question  in  all  its  bearings, 
and  then  even  those  who  have  seen,  and  can  account  for  it  very 
easily,  will  wonder,  admire,  and  thank,  the  infinite  Providence 
of  God. 

First,  it  is  certain  that  nowhere  else  in  this  world  could  it  have 
been  accomplished  at  all ;  and  nowhere  else  in  this  world  has 
any  thing  like  it  been  accomplished  in  a  like  manner.  This  may 
appear  strange,  but  it  is  so  ;  let  us  see. 

All  know  how,  in  infidel  countries,  every  thing  necessary  for 
the  material  help  of  Catholic  missions  must  be  supplied  by  the 
missionaries  themselves ;  that,  in  fact,  they  have  not  only  their 
own  support  to  consider,  but,  often  also,  the  feeding,  clothing, 
and  education  of  the  natives  at  their  own  expense.  It  is  thus  in 
all  the  barbarous  countries  of  Asia,  Africa,  and  the  new  conti- 
nent and  islands  in  the  South  Sea.  It  is  thus  in  the  old,  effete, 
but  once  civilized  countries  of  Asia,  such  as  Syria,  Hindostan, 
China,  and  others.  In  all  those  countries,  money  must  come 
from  without,  not  only  to  begin,  but  to  continue,  the  work  of 
evangelization,  even  when  it  has  been  going  on  for  centuries. 
Details  on  this  subject  are  unnecessary,  the  truth  of  what  has 
just  been  said  is  so  well  known. 

In  Christian  countries,  as  in  Europe,  the  various  governments 
have  so  far  contributed  to  the  aid  of  the  mission  of  Christianity, 
or  have  been  gracious  enough  to  allow  such  of  the  wealthy 
classes  as  were  willing  to  take  this  task  off  their  shoulders  and  set 
it  up  on  their  own,  the  lower  classes  being  scarcely  able  to  help 
toward  it.  What  the  case  will  be  when  the  halcvon  davs  come 
of  the  separation  of  Church  and  state,  and  the  latter  succeeds  in 
the  object  at  which  it  seems  so  earnestly  striving  now,  of  making 
the  people  godless  like  itself,  when  the  rich  will  no  longer  be 
willing  to  undertake  this  work,  God  only  knows.  But  in  those 
countries,  as  is  well  known,  the  government,  formerly,  and  lat- 
terly up  to  quite  recent  times,  or  rich  families  by  large  contribu- 
tions laid  down  at  once,  have  built  churches,  founded  universities, 
colleges,  and  schools,  erected  hospitals  and  asylums ;  founded — 
such  was  the  expression — all  the  religious,  charitable,  or  literary 
institutions  in  existence.    The  "people"  have  scarcely  effected 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS.       '  443 


'  any  thing  in  this  direction,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  they 
were  unable  to  do  so. 

In  the  United  States  alone,  and  among  Catholics  alone,  it  is 
"  the  people,"  the  poor,  who  have  taken  and  been  able  to  take 
this  matter  into  their  own  hands. 

That  they — the  Irish  particularly — have  done  this,  redounds 
to  their  honor,  and  it  will  receive  its  reward  from  God  ;  nay,  has 
already  in  a  great  measure  received  it,  by  filling  the  land  with 
the  temples  of  their  faith,  with  schools  where  their  children  are 
still  taught  to  believe  in  God  and  grow  up  a  moral  race,  and 
with  the  various  Catholic  asylums  and  institutions  established  for 
the  glory  of  religion,  or  the  comfort  of  those  who  are  comfortless. 
That  they  have  been  able  to  do  this  is  owing  to  the  unique,  ex- 
ceptional, marvellous  prosperity  of  the  country  which  offered 
them  an  asylum.  And  let  us  add  with  reverence  that  the  coun- 
try owes  this  singular  prosperity,  which  has  been  the  source  of 
so  many  blessings,  to  the  designs  of  a  loving  Providence,  who 
looks  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole  of  mankind,  and  has  therefore 
endowed  this  young  and  gigantic  nation  with  the  necessary  qual- 
ities of  energy,  activity, "  go-aheaditiveness,"  as  it  is  called,  added 
to  the  fixed  principle  that  every  individual  throughout  these  vast 
domains  shall  enjoy  liberty,  facility  of  acquiring  a  competency, 
and  the  right  to  make  what  use  of  it  he  pleases,  as  well  as  gen- 
erosity enough  to  applaud  the  one  who  devotes  his  surplus  earn- 
ings to  useful  public  undertakings. 

In  no  other  country  of  the  world  has  this  been  the  case,  and 
in  no  other  country  is  it  the  case  at  the  present  moment.  And, 
as  the  fact  is  mighty  in  its  results,  unprepared  by  man,  unlooked 
for  a  hundred  years  ago,  requiring  for  its  fulfilment  a  thousand 
agencies  far  beyond  the  control  of  any  man  or  inferior  mind,  fol- 
lowing the  line  of  reasoning  previously  indicated,  we  ascribe,  are 
constrained  to  ascribe,  it  all  to  the  great  infinite  Mind,  to  God 
himself,  and  to  him  alone  ! 

And  now  we  turn  to  the  workings  of  the  Irish,  and  to  a  con- 
sideration of  a  few  of  the  details.  The  first  crying  need  was 
churches  and  orphan  asylums  :  churches  for  the  all-important 
worship  of  God  ;  orphan  asylums  to  receive  the  numbers  of  chil- 
dren left  homeless  by  the  death  of  immigrants  soon  after  their 
arrival,  and  who  were  immediately  snatched  up  by  the  prose- 
lytizing sects. 

The  style  of  architecture  displayed  in  those  first  temples  of 
the  great  God  was  homely  indeed  and  humble.  Nevertheless,  it 
might  favorably  compare  with  similar  buildings  erected  by 
wealthy  Protestant  congregations.  This  fact  alone  is  sufficient 
to  convict  Protestantism  of  want  of  faith,  namelv,  that  its  ad- 
herents  have  never  been  struck  by  the  thought  that  the  majesty 
of  God,  if  really  felt,  calls  for  a  profusion  of  gifts  on  the  part  of 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


those  who  have  superabundant  means.  Not  that  man  can  by 
his  feeble  exertions  in  that  regard  give  adequate  honor  to  the 
divine  Omnipotence,  but  that  love  and  gratitude  are  naturally 
profuse  in  their  demonstrations,  and  whoever  loves  ardently  is 
ever  ready  to  give  all  he  has  for  the  object  of  his  love,  even  to 
the  sacrifice  of  himself.  The  reflection  that  God  is  too  great,  and 
that  it  is  useless,  even  presumptuous,  to  offer  to  him  what  must 
seem  so  infinitely  mean  in  the  light  of  his  greatness,  is  but  the 
flimsy  pretext  of  an  avaricious  soul,  and  can  be  nothing  but  a  lie, 
even  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  utter  it.  From  the  beginning  all 
truly  religious  nations  have  endeavored  to  make  their  external 
worship  correspond  with  their  internal  feeling,  and  give  expres- 
sion, as  far  as  man  can  do,  to  their  idea  of  the  worth  and  majesty 
of  God  ;  and  that  thought  is  a  true  measure  of  a  religion  ;  for, 
when  the  external  is  but  a  cold  and  sordid  worship,  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  internal  corresponds ;  and,  when  little  or  nothing 
is  done  in  that  way,  it  is  clear  that  the  heart  feels  not,  and  the 
mind  is  empty  of  true  convictions  and  of  faith. 

And  what  has  been  the  invariable  conduct  of  Protestant  na- 
tions in  this  regard  ?  They  became  possessed  of  splendid 
churches  built  by  their  Catholic  ancestors,  and,  after  stripping 
them  of  all  their  beauty,  they  retained  them  as  "preaching- 
halls  "  or  "  meeting-houses."  The  number  of  those  who  remained 
attached  to  a  frigid  and  unattractive  service  gradually  dimin- 
ished ;  the  edifices  were  found  to  be  too  large,  and  in  many  in- 
stances what  had  been  the  sanctuary,  where  art  had  exhausted 
itself  in  embellishment,  partitioned  off*  from  the  rest  of  the 
church,  was  kept  for  their  dwindling  congregations,  while  the  vast 
aisles  and  roomy  naves  went  slowly  to  ruin,  or  became  deserted 
solitudes.  As  ior  the  idea  of  building  new  religious  edifices,  the 
old  ones  were  already  too  numerous  for  them,  or  if,  as  was  not 
unfrequent,  a  new  sect  started  into  spasmodic  life,  and  its  vo- 
taries found  it  necessary  to  open  a  new  "  place  of  worship,"  the 
temple  they  erected  to  God  generally  took  the  form  of  a  hired 
hall.  Let  the  floor  be  carpeted  and  the  benches  covered  with 
soft,  slumber-inviting  cushions,  the  room  wear  a  general  air  and 
aspect  of  comfort,  the  "  acoustics  "  duly  considered,  so  that  the 
voice  of  the  preacher  might  reach  to  the  door  and  half-way  to  the 
galleries,  and  nothing  more  was  required.  The  man  who  asked 
for  something  more  solemn,  and  answering  better  to  the  cravings 
of  a  religious  heart,  would  be  laughed  at  as  a  visionary,  if  his 
person  did  not  distil,  to  the  keen-scented  organs  of  these  reli- 
gious folk,  a  strong  flavor  of  "  popery  "  and  of  "  the  man  of  sin." 

So  that  in  the  United  States  at  the  time  spoken  of,  although 
the  number  of  churches  was  extraordinary,  because  of  the  num- 
ber of  sects,  they  were  mere  shells  of  buildings,  capable  of  ac- 
commodating from  three  to  eight  hundred  people  (very  few  of 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


445 


the  latter  capacity) ;  and,  although  many  of  the  members  of  the 
congregations  who  built  them  were  rich  men,  adding  to  their 
wealth  daily,  one  seldom  encountered  any  of  the  structures,  then 
common,  showing  much  more  than  four  walls,  enclosing  four  lines 
of  clumsy  pews. 

Consequently,  the  Catholic  Church  had  no  reason  to  blush 
by  comparison  at  the  poverty  of  her  children  ;  nay,  the  extreme 
simplicity  of  the  edifices  raised  by  them  was  in  keeping  with 
every  thing  around,  and  what  they  did  in  the  hurry  of  the 
moment,  with  the  scanty  means  at  their  disposal,  at  least  might 
vie  with  what  wealthy  Protestants  had  done  deliberately  with 
all  the  leisure  and  wealth  at  their  command. 

Already,  even  at  that  epoch,  in  the  centre  of  Catholicity  in 
this  country,  the  love  of  the  true  worshipper  of  God  began  to 
display  something  of  that  feeling  which  is  naturally  alive  in  the 
heart  of  the  sincerely  religious  man  ;  and  the  Cathedral  of 
Baltimore,  long  since  left  so  far  behind  by  other  monuments  of 
true  devotion,  created  throughout  the  country  a  genuine  excite- 
ment and  admiration,  when  its  doors  were  first  opened  for  the 
worship  of  God.  It  was  clear,  from  the  universal  acclaim  of  the 
people,  non-Catholics  included,  that  at  least  one  class  of  men  in 
the  country  had  a  true  idea  of  what  was  worthy  of  God  in  his 
worship,  and  what  was  worthy  of  themselves  in  their  worship 
of  him. 

But,  though,  with  some  rare  exceptions,  the  architecture  dis- 
played in  those  edifices  constructed  by  the  children  of  the  true 
Church  was  poor  indeed,  the  number  of  those  which  were  com- 
menced and  so  speedily  completed  and  devoted  to  their  holy  use 
was  so  extraordinary,  that  it  is  doubtful  if  the  annals  of  Catholi- 
city have  ever  recorded  the  same  thing  occurring  on  the  same 
6cale,  in  the  same  extent  of  country.  If  the  ecclesiastical  history 
of  the  United  States  ever  comes  to  be  written,  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that,  in  the  archives  of  the  various  episcopal  sees,  authentic  docu- 
ments have  been  preserved,  which  may  furnish  future  writers 
with  comprehensive  statistics  on  the  subject,  that  the  posterity 
of  the  noble-hearted  men  and  women  who  undertook  and  carried 
out,  with  such  a  wonderful  success,  so  arduous  a  task,  may  be 
stimulated  to  religious  exertion  of  the  same  kind  by  the  memory 
of  what  their  forefathers  have  accomplished.  The  reflection  al- 
ready suggested  by  another  idea  may  serve  here  likewise,  and  be 
usefully  repeated.  If,  in  the  course  of  twenty-five  years,  over 
the  surface  of  at  least  ten  of  the  largest  Northern  States,  every 
clergyman  who,  at  the  beginning  of  that  period,  officiated  in  a 
very  small  church,  is,  to-day,  supposing  him  living,  gladdened 
by  the  sight  of  ten  to  twenty  collaborators,  with  a  corresponding 
number  of  newly-built  churches,  it  is  easy  to  judge  of  the  vast- 
ness  of  the  effort  made  by  the  greatness  of  the  undertaking  and 


446 


THE  "EXODUS "  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


the  unexampled  success  with  which  God  has  been  pleased  to  crown 
it.  The  other  States  of  the  Union  are  omitted  here,  not  because 
the  Catholics  residing  in  them  were  then  idle,  but  because,  their 
growth  being  less  remarkable,  the  external  result  could  not  be  so 
striking.  JSlevertheless,  the  actual  increase  among  them  would 
compare  favorably  with  that  of  other  growing  Catholic  countries. 

Could  details,  at  this  present  time,  only  be  gathered  from  all 
the  States,  in  the  area  referred  to,  the  vast  diffusion  of  Catholi- 
city by  the  influence  of  immigration  would  come  home  to  us 
with  far  greater  force,  as  would  the  conception  of  the  corre- 
sponding work  demanded  of  the  immigrants  for  the  creation  of  all 
the  objects  of  worship,  charity,  and  education.  Let  the  reader 
look  to  what  is  related  in  the  "  Life  of  Bishop  Loras,"  who  was  at 
that  time  charged  with  the  founding  of  religion  in  Iowa  and 
Minnesota.  It  will  at  the  same  time  bring  under  our  notice  the 
march  of  the  Irish  toward  the  West,  after  having  seen  them 
solidly  established  in  the  Atlantic  States. 

"  He  was  consecrated  at  Mobile  by  Bishop  Portier,  assisted 
by  Bishop  Blanc,  of  New  Orleans,  on  December  10,  1837.  His 
diocese  was  a  vast  region  unknown  to  him.  The  unfinished 
Church  of  St.  Kapha  el,  at  Dubuque,  was  the  only  Catholic  church 
in  the  Territory,  and  the  Rev.  Sam.  Mazzuchelli,  its  pastor,  was 
the  only  Catholic  priest.  The  Catholic  population  of  Dubuque 
was  about  three  hundred.  .  .  .  But  there  must  be,  thought  the 
new  bishop,  some  members  of  the  flock  in  distant,  isolated,  and 
unfrequented  localities,  who  were  in  danger  of  wandering  from 
the  faith  ;  besides,  the  future  wraves  of  population  would  certain- 
ly set  in  toward  this  fine  expanse  of  meadow,  prairie,  and 
forest.  .  .  .  With  prudent  foresight  he  purchased  land  .  .  .  . 
three  acres  at  Dubuque;  later,  St.  Joseph's  Prairie,  one  mile 
square,  near  the  same  city.  .  .  .  A  valuable  property  was  acquired 
in  Davenport,  on  the  Mississippi,  writh  the  view  of  applying  the 
revenue  from  it  to  the  support  of  the  missions. 

"  To  his  regret  he  saw  large  numbers  of  the  European  immi- 
grants tarrying  in  the  Atlantic  cities,  where  want,  sickness,  and 
crime,  beset  their  path,  and  he  became  deeply  interested  in  giv- 
ing to  this  worthy  population  the  more  healthful  and  vigorous 
direction  of  the  West.  .  .  .  Articles  were  prepared  and  published, 
setting  forth  the  attractions  of  the  country.  .  .  .  An  immense 
correspondence,  with  persons  in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  re- 
sulted from  the  well-known  interest  Bishop  Loras  took  in  these 
subjects.  .  .  .  He  undertook  the  settlement  of  colonies.  .  .  .  Ger- 
mans in  New  Vienna,  in  1846  .  .  .  Irish  on  the  Big-Maquokety. 
.  .  .  He  organized  them  in  congregations,  and  commenced  in 
person  the  work  of  building  for  them  churches.  .  .  .  establishing 
schools  and  academies,  laboring  for  the  temporal  and  eternal  wel- 
fare of  the  people." 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


447 


Thus  did  the  tide  of  Catholic  population  begin  to  flow  into 
Iowa  and  Minnesota,  to  be  brought  under  the  influence  of  the 
Church  as  soon  as  it  arrived. 

Meanwhile  associations  were  being  formed  in  the  East,  in 
.New  York  chiefly,  for  the  purpose  of  inducing  Irishmen  to  go 
west  as  far  as  Illinois,  and  the  Territories  west  of  the  Mississippi. 
Several  zealous  clergymen  placed  themselves  at  the  head  of  the 
movement.  Their  main  object  was  to  rescue  the  Catholic  immi- 
grants from  the  dangers  surrounding  them  in  large  cities,  and  to 
make  farmers  of  them.  We  have  seen  why  these  plans,  though 
prompted  by  the  best  intentions,  failed  to  succeed ;  their  imme- 
diate effect  was  to  give  a  fresh  impetus  to  the  great  movement 
westward,  and,  by  relieving  the  Atlantic  coast  of  a  sudden  excess 
of  population,  to  extend  the  Church  along  the  line  marked  out  by 
Providence  toward  the  coast  of  the  Pacific. 

At  the  same  time,  on  the  very  shores  of  that  vast  ocean,  Cali- 
fornia was  receiving  directly  from  Europe  large  detachments  of 
the  voluntary  exiles  who  were  then  leaving  Ireland  in  a  compact 
body  in  the  full  tide  of  the  "  Exodus."  The  Catholic  Church  was 
thus  early  taking  up  a  commanding  position  at  the  extreme 
point  whither  the  main  "army"  was  tending,  and  soon  to  arrive 
with  the  completion  of  the  great  Pacific  Railroad. 

The  following  extract,  taken  from  the  "Life  of  Bishop  Loras," 
will  be  sufficient  to  give  an  idea  of  the  rapid  increase  of  the 
Catholic  population  in  the  West,  in  consequence  of  the  workings 
of  so  many  agencies  employed  by  God's  providence  for  his  own 
holy  ends : 

"In  1855,  the  Catholic  population  of  Iowa  increased  one 
hundred  and  fifty  per  centum  in  a  single  year.  It  seems  almost 
incredible  to  relate,  that  the  churches  and  stations,  provided  for 
their  accommodation,  increased  in  the  same  time  nearly  one  hun- 
dred per  centum.  The  Catholic  population  reported  in  1855  was 
twenty  thousand,  and  the  churches  and  stations  fifty-two  ;  the 
Catholic  population  in  1856  was  rated  at  forty-nine  thousand, 
and  the  churches  and  stations  at  ninety-seven. 

"Bishop  Loras  commenced  his  episcopate  (in  1837)  with  one 
church,  one  priest,  and  the  only  Catholic  population  reported, 
that  of  Dubuque,  was  three  hundred.  In  1851,  Minnesota  was 
taken  from  his  diocese,  yet  in  1858,  the  year  of  his  death,  the 
diocese  of  Dubuque  alone  possessed  one  hundred  and  seven 
priests,  one  hundred  and  two  churches  and  stations,  and  a  Catho- 
lic population  of  fifty-five  thousand." 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that,  if  similar  statistics  were  drawn 
up  for  all  the  Western  States  of  the  Union  during  a  correspond- 
ing period,  they  would  give  very  similar  results ;  and  it  is  only 
by  reflecting  and  pondering  over  such  astonishing  facts  as  these, 
that  the  mind  can  come  to  grasp  the  idea  of  the  magnitude  of 


4AS  THE  "EXODUS"  A.KD  ITS  EFFECTS. 

the  work  assigned  by  Providence  to  the  Irish  race.  This,  we 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  will  form  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able features  of  the  future  ecclesiastical  history  of  the  age,  and 
will  appear  the  more  clearly  when  all  the  consequences  of  this 
stupendous  movement  shall  stand  out  fully  developed,  so  as  to 
strike  the  eyes  of  all. 

It  may  be  well  to  reflect  a  moment  upon  the  activity  dis- 
played by  that  zealous  hive  of  busy  immigrants,  who,  soon  after 
landing,  when  the  thoughts  of  other  men  would  have  been  exclu- 
sively and,  as  men  would  think,  naturally,  occupied  by  the  thou- 
sand necessities  arising  from  a  new  establishment  on  a  foreign 
soil  —  while  not  neglecting  those  necessities  —  found  time  to 
enter  heart  and  soul  into  projects  set  on  foot  everywhere  for 
buying  up  landed  property,  making  contracts  with  builders, 
supervising  the  work  already  going  on,  attending  above  all  to 
the  collection  of  money,  forming  lists  of  subscribers  to  that  end, 
visiting  round  about  for  the  same  purpose,  and  attending  to  the 
fulfilment  of  promises  sometimes  made  too  hastily,  or  with  too 
sanguine  an  expectation  of  being  able  to  accomplish  what  in  the 
future  was  never  realized  to  the  extent  expected. 

But,  much  sooner  than  might  have  been  hoped,  the  desire,  so 
congenial  to  the  Catholic  heart,  of  beholding  more  suitable 
dwellings  erected  to  the  honor  of  God  and  to  the  reception  of 
his  Divine  presence,  was  fulfilled,  or  aroused,  rather,  in  a  quar- 
ter least  expected,  and  consequently  more  in  accordance  with 
the  (to  man)  mysterious  ways  of  Providence.  The  sudden 
increase  of  the  Church  in  England,  in  consequence  of  remarkable 
conversions  and  principally  of  the  little-remarked  flow  of  emi- 
grants thither  from  the  sister  isle,  induced  some  pious  and 
wealthy  English  Catholics,  now  that  they  found  themselves  free 
to  follow  their  inclinations  unmolested,  to  devote  their  means  to 
the  construction  of  churches  worthy  of  the  name.  The  splendid 
structures,  now  the  lifeless  monuments  of  the  old  faith,  which 
their  fathers  had  raised,  rested  in  the  hands  of  the  spoiler,  and 
they  could  not  worship,  save  privately  and  inwardly,  at  the 
shrine  of  Thomas  of  Canterbury,  or  before  the  tomb  of  Edward 
the  Confessor.  Yet  were  their  eyes  ever  afflicted  with  the  pres- 
ence of  those  noble  edifices,  that  resembled  the  solemn  tombs  of 
a  buried  faith,  yet  still  cast  their  lofty  spires  heavenward,  while 
the  structure  beneath  them  covered  acres  of  ground  with  the 
most  profuse  and  elaborate  architecture.  They  looked  around 
them  for  a  builder,  who  might  raise  them  such  again.  But  there 
was  none  to  be  found  capable  of  conceiving,  much  less  building 
such  vast  fabrics  as  the  old  churches,  which  owed  their  existence 
not  to  the  ingenuity  of  a  designer,  but  to  the  inspired  enthu- 
siasm of  a  living  faith.  Nevertheless i  a  man,  full  of  energy  and 
reverence  and  love  for  the  beauty  of  the  house  of  God,  came 


THE  "  EXODUS "  AND  ITS  EFFECTS, 


449 


forward  at  the  very  moment  he  was  wanted.  "Welby  Pugin  soon 
became  known  to  the  world,  and  was  still  in  the  full  vigor  of  his 
enterprising  life,  when  all  over  the  American  Continent  the  im- 
migrants were  engaged  in  satisfying  the  first  cravings  of  their 
hearts,  and  covering  the  country  with  unpretending  edifices 
crowned,  at  least,  by  the  symbol  of  salvation.  Among  them 
arrived  pupils  of  Pugin,  who  speedily  found  Irish  hearts  to  re- 
spond to  theirs,  and  Irish  purses  ready  to  carry  their  designs 
into  execution. 

There  is  no  need  of  going  into  details.  Puritan  ISTew  Eng- 
land even  has  seen  its  chief  cities  one  by  one  adorned  with 
true  temples  of  God,  and  its  small  towns  embellished  by  stone 
edifices  devoted  to  Catholic  worship,  their  form  pleasing  to  the 
eye,  and  their  interior  spacious  enough,  at  least  temporarily,  for 
tne  constantly-increasing  congregations.  But  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  result  of  all  has  been  the  sudden  zeal  which  sprang 
up  among  the  sectarians  themselves,  who  had  hitherto  expressed 
such  contempt  for  any  thing  of  the  kind,  of  outstripping  the 
Catholics  in  Christian  architecture.  They  have  even  gone  so  far 
as  to  discover  that  the  cross,  the  emblem  of  man's  salvation,  is 
not  such  a  very  inappropriate  ornament,  after  all,  to  the  summit 
of  a  Christian  temple,  and  that  the  statues  of  angels  and  of 
saints  are  possessed  of  a  certain  beauty.  So  that  what  in  their 
eyes  hitherto  had  borne  the  semblance  of  idolatry — such,  accord- 
ing to  themselves,  was  their  way  of  looking  at  it — suddenly 
became  an  aesthetic  feeling,  if  not  an  act  of  true  devotion. 

And,  singularly  enough,  it  was  just  at  the  time  when  the 
erection  of  so  many  episcopal  sees  necessitated  the  building  of 
cathedrals,  that  the  thought,  natural  to  the  Catholic  heart,  of 
making  the  house  of  God  a  place  of  beauty  and  magnificence, 
could  begin  to  be  realized  by  the  arrival  of  true  artists  and  the 
increasing  wealth  of  the  Catholic  body. 

It  is  in  the  true  Church  only  that  the  meaning  of  a  cathedral 
can  be  fully  grasped.  Those  sects  which  acknowledge  no  bishops 
and  deride  the  title  certainly  can  form  no  conception  of  it,  and 
even  those  who  imagine  that  they  have  a  bishop  at  their  head, 
have  so  little  idea  of  what  are  true  episcopal  functions,  of  the 
greatness  of  the  position  which  a  see  occupies,  of  the  importance 
of  the  place  where  it  is  established,  that  in  their  eyes  the  pretended 
dignitary  can  scarcely  rank  much  higher,  either  in  position  or 
degree,  than  a  wealthy  parish  minister,  and  the  church  wherein 
"  his  lordship  "  officiates  is  very  much  the  same  as  an  ordinary 
parish  church.  If  in  England  a  show  of  dignitaries  is  attached 
to  each  of  those  establishments,  it  is  merely  a  form  well  calcu- 
lated to  impress  the  solemn  Anglo-Saxon  character ;  but  even 
that  very  form  would  scarcely  have  existed  were  it  not  one  of 
those  few  semblances  of  the  Catholic  reality  which  the  wily 
29 


±50 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


founders  of  the  Protestant  religion  found  it  convenient  to  retain 
for  the  purpose  hinted  at.  The  Catholic  Church  alone  can  under- 
stand what  a  cathedral  ought  to  be. 

This  is  not  the  occasion  to  enter  upon  an  explanation  of  all  the 
meanings  and  uses  of  a  cathedral,  least  of  all  to  penetrate  the 
sublime  mystical  significance  embodied  in  its  conception.  Here 
it  is  enongh  to  insist  upon  the  least  important,  yet  most  sensible 
and  more  easily-recognized  object  of  the  building,  which  is,  not 
simply  the  seat  of  honor  of  the  first  pastor  of  the  diocese,  who  is 
a  successor  of  the  apostles,  but  likewise  the  place  of  adoration 
and  sacrifice  common  to  all  the  faithful  of  the  diocese.  Strictlv 
speaking,  no  special  congregation  is  attached  to  it ;  but  it  is  the 
spiritual  home  of  all  the  faithful ;  its  doors  are  open  to  all  the 
congregations  of  that  part.  There  the  common  father  resides 
and  officiates  ;  there  his  voice  is  generally  to  be  heard  ;  there  he 
is  to  be  found  surrounded  by  all  those  whose  duty  it  is  to  assist 
him  in  his  sublime  functions.  When  he  appears  in  any  parish 
church,  the  clergy  of  that  special  temple  are  his  only  attendants, 
unless  others  flock  thither  to  do  him  honor.  But  the  cathedral 
is  his  fixed  seat  and  permanent  abode  ;  there  the  appointed  dig- 
nitaries of  the  diocese  find  their  allotted  places,  and  there  alone 
are  his  officers  permanently  attached  to  him  by  their  functions. 

Hence  it  is  the  cardinal  church  upon  which  the  whole  spirit- 
ual edifice  called  the  diocese  is  hinged.  Therefore  is  it  the  nat- 
ural resort  of  the  whole  flock,  as  well  as  of  the  pastor  himself. 
This  wTill  explain  the  vastness  of  those  edifices  which  strike  us 
with  wonder  in  old  established  Catholic  countries.  In  accord- 
ance with  their  primitive  intention  and  purpose,  there  should  be 
in  them  standing  and  kneeling  room  for  all  who  have  a  right  to 
enter  there  ;  and  it  is  purely  on  account  of  the  impossibility  of 
exactly  fulfilling  this  intent  that  the  edifice  is  allowed  to  be 
built  smaller.  We  are  thus  enabled  to  understand  why  the 
great  temple  which  is  the  centre-spot  of  Catholic  worship  can 
contain  only  fifty  thousand  worshippers  at  a  time,  and  why  many 
other  sacred  edifices  consecrated  to  episcopal  functions  can  find 
room  for  no  more  than  twenty  or  thirty  thousand. 

But  even  those  structures,  which  strike  with  wonder  the  puny 
minds  of  this  "  advanced  "  age,  have  consumed  centuries  in  their 
construction,  and  the  number  and  the  faith  of  those  who  raised 
them  were,  we  may  say,  exceptional  in  the  life  of  the  Church. 
There  were  no  dissenters  in  those  days ;  and,  as  all  were  pos- 
sessed of  a  firm  faith,  all  labored  with  a  common  will  and  con- 
tributed with  a  common  pleasure  to  their  construction. 

Times  having  changed  for  the  worse,  the  same  ardor  and 
generosity  could  not  be  looked  for  ;  but  something  at  least  was 
required  which  should  give  some  idea  of  the  old  splendor  and 
vastness.    So,  throughout  all  the  new  dioceses  projects  were  set 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


451 


on  foot  for  raising  real  cathedrals,  which  should  quite  overshadow 
the  buildings  hitherto  known  by  that  name. 

Thus,  a"  cathedral  was  promised  to  New  York  City,  three 
hundred  and  thirty  feet  in  length,  and  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
two  in  breadth  across  the  transept ;  while  that  of  Philadelphia 
was  soon  completed,  and  all  might  gaze  on  the  massive  and  ma- 
jestic edifice,  by  the  side  of  which  every  other  public  building  in 
a  city  containing  eight  hundred  thousand  souls  appeared  dwarf- 
ish and  unsubstantial.  Boston  was  soon  to  behold  within  its 
wails  a  Catholic  cathedral,  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  feet 
long,  and  one  hundred  and  forty  broad  in  the  transept,  though 
the  same  diocese  was  already  filled  with  large  stone  churches, 
built  solely  by  the  resources  of  the  immigrants. 

The  Archbishop  of  New  York,  when  preaching  the  sermon 
at  the  laving  of  the  foundation-stone  of  this  edifice  in  1867,  was 
able  to  say  in  the  presence  of  many  who  might  have  borne  per- 
sonal testimony  to  the  truth  of  his  words :  "  There  are  those 
most  probably  within  the  sound  of  my  voice  who  can  remember 
when  there  was  but  one  Catholic  church  in  Boston,  and  when 
that  sufficed,  or  had  to  suffice,  not  alone  for  this  city,  but  for  all 
New  England  ;  and  how  is  it  now  ?  Churches  and  institutions 
multiplied,  and  daily  continuing  to  multiply  on  every  side,  in 
this  city,  throughout  this  State,  in  all  or  nearly  all  the  cities  and 
States  of  New  England ;  so  that  at  this  day  no  portion  of  our 
country  is  enriched  with  them  in  greater  proportionate  number, 
none  where  they  have  grown  up  to  a  more  flourishing  condition, 
none  where  finished  with  more  artistic  skill,  or  presenting  monu- 
ments of  more  architectural  taste  and  beauty." 

Had  any  one  predicted  this  to  the*  good  and  gifted  Bishop 
Cheverus,  when  leaving  America  for  France,  he  might  perhaps 
have  not  refused  altogether  to  believe  or  hope  for  it,  but  he 
would  certainly  have  pronounced  it  a  real  and  undoubted  miracle 
of  God,  to  happen  within  a  century. 

But  the  Archbishop  of  New  Vork,  in  that  same  sermon, 
ointed  out  the  true  cause,  when  he  attributed  it  to  "  God's 
lessing,"  and  to  "  the  never-ceasing  tide  of  immigration  that 
has  been  and  still  continues  to  be  setting  toward  the  American 
shores." 

The  history  of  the  Church  certainly  contains  many  a  page 
where  the  traces  of  the  finger  of  God  are  clearly  marked  ;  nay, 
we  may  say  that  such  traces  are  apparent  throughout,  as  we 
know  that  God  alone  could  have  originated,  spread  out,  sup- 
ported, multiplied,  and  perpetuated  the  Church  through  all  the 
centuries  of  her  existence  ;  but  it  is  doubtful  if  in  all  her  annals 
a  single  page  shows  where  the  action  of  Providence  is  more 
clearly  visible,  as  it  was  least  expected,  than  in  the  few  facts  just 
cursorily  and  briefly  enumerated. 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


Yet  have  we  mentioned  only  a  part  of  the  work  to  which 
the  poor  immigrants  were  called  to  contribute  immediately  after 
their  arrival,  and  at  the  vastness  of  which  they  never  murmured 
nor  lost  heart,  as  though  a  greater  burden  had  been  laid  upon 
them  than  human  shoulders  could  endure. 

The  worship  of  God  and  the  care  of  souls  were  the  first 
things  to  be  attended  to,  and,  with  these,  other  necessary  objects 
were  not  to  be  neglected.  There  was  the  care  of  the  poor, 
whom  the  Church  of  Christ  was  the  first  public  body  to  think 
of  relieving ;  the  tending  of  the  sick  in  hospitals,  where  their 
own  clergy  might  not  only  have  access,  but  where  it  should  be 
made  sure  that  the  management  be  one  of  true  Christian  charity 
and  tenderness  ;  the  orphan  children,  always  so  numerous  under 
circumstances  like  those  of  the  present,  were  to  be  saved  from 
falling  into  the  hands  of  sectarians,  and  being  educated  by  them, 
as  were  formerly  the  Catholic  wards,  in  hatred  of  their  own 
faith,  and  of  the  customs,  habits,  and  modes  of  thought  of  their 
ancestors.  This  last  great  and  incalculable  source  of  loss  to  the 
Church  was  to  be  put  a  stop  to  at  once,  if  not  completely — for 
that  was  then  impossible — at  least  as  perfectly  as  zeal,  gener- 
osity, and  true  love  of  souls,  could  effect.  All  these  works 
required  money,  an  incalculable  amount ;  as  it  was  not  in  a  single 
city,  not  in  a  small  particular  State,  but  throughout  the  whole 
Union,  through  as  many  cities  as  it  contains,  that  the  undertak- 
ing was  to  be  straightway  set  on  foot  and  simultaneously  acted 
upon. 

Xor  was  the  question  one  of  the  erection  of  buildings  merely, 
but  also  of  the  support  of  an  immense  number  of  inmates,  and 
of  their  constant  support  without  a  single  day's  intermission. 
Who  can  calculate  the  sums  required  for  such  immediate  and 
most  pressing  needs  ? 

In  a  nation  where  Christianity  has  been  long  established, 
taxes  imposed  upon  all  for  the  constructing,  repairing,  maintain- 
ing, and  carrying  on  so  many  and  such  large  establishments  are 
easily  collected.  For  all  are  bound  bv  law  to  contribute  to  6uch 
purposes,  and  the  question  generally  reduces  itself  merely  to  a 
continuance  of  the  support  of  institutions  long  standing,  and 
which  can  be  no  longer  in  need  of  the  large  disbursements 
necessary  at  the  first  period  of  their  existence.  But  here  it  was 
a  question  of  providing,  without  any  other  law  than  that  of  love, 
without  the  help  of  any  other  tax-gatherer  than  the  voluntary 
collector,  for  all  those  necessities  at  once,  including  the  vast  out- 
lays requisite  for  the  first  establishment  of  those  institutions, 
and  imposing,  by  that  very  act,  the  necessity  and  duty  of  sup- 
porting forever  all  the  inmates  gathered  together  at  the  cost  of 
so  much  care  and  expense,  within  those  walls  consecrated  to 
religion  and  charity.    The  government  had  no  share  whatever 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


452 


in  it ;  too  nappy  were  they  at  the  government  interposing  no 
obstacle  to  its  carrying  out !  That  was  all  they  asked  for  on  its 
part — non-interferen  ce. 

On  this  subject,  Mr.  Maguire  remarks  justly,  without,  how- 
ever, bringing  the  matter  of  expenditure  into  sufficient  promi- 
nence : 

"  For  the  glorious  Church  of  America  many  nations  have  done 
their  part.  The  sacred  seed  first  planted  by  the  hand  of  the 
chivalrous  Spaniard  has  been  watered  by  the  blood  of  the  gen- 
erous Gaul ;  to  the  infant  mission  the  Englishman  brought  his 
steadfastness  and  resolution,  the  Scotchman,  in  the  northeast,  his 
quiet  firmness,  .  .  .  the  Irishman  his  faith,  the  ardor  of  his  faith. 
And,  as  time  rolled  on,  and  wave  after  wave  of  immigration 
brought  with  it  more  and  more  of  the  precious  life-blood  of  Europe, 
from  no  country  was  there  a  richer  contribution  of  piety  and  zeal, 
of  devotion  and  self-sacrifice,  than  from  that  advanced  outpost  of 
the  Old  World,  whose  western  shores  first  break  the  fury  of  the 
Atlantic  ;  to  whose  people  Providence  appears  to  have  assigned 
a  destiny  grand  and  heroic — of  carrying  the  civilization  of  the 
Cross  to  remote  lands  and  distant  nations.  What  Ireland  has 
done  for  the  American  Church,  every  bishop,  every  priest,  can 
tell.  Throughout  the  vast  extent  of  the  Union  there  is  scarcely 
a  church,  an  academy,  a  hospital,  or  a  refuge,  in  which  the 
piety,  the  learning,  the  zeal,  the  self-sacrifice,  of  the  Irish — of  the 
priest  or  the  professor,  of  the  Sisters  of  every  order  or  denomina- 
tion— are  not  to  be  traced ;  there  is  scarcely  an  ecclesiastical 
seminary  for  English-speaking  students  in  which  the  great  ma- 
jority of  those  now  preparing  for  the  service  of  the  sanctuary  do 
not  belong,  if  not  by  birth,  at  least  by  blood,  to  that  historic  land 
to  which  the  grateful  Church  of  past  ages  accorded  the  proud 
title,  Insula  Sanctorum" 

To  this  may  be  added  the  remark  that  it  is  still  further  be- 
yond doubt  that  all  the  establishments  mentioned,  almost  with- 
out one  exception,  owe  their  existence,  at  least  partially,  and 
very  often  entirely,  to  the  generous  and  never-failing  contribu- 
tions of  the  Irish. 

The  Rev.  C.  G.  White,  in  his  "  Sketch  of  the  Origin  and 
Progress  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States  of  Ameri- 
ca," which  is  appended  to  the  translation  of  Darras's  "  History 
of  the  Catholic  Church,"  says  still  more  positively  : 

"  In  recording  this  consoling  advancement  of  Catholicity 
throughout  the  United  States,  especially  in  the  North  and  West, 
justice  requires  us  to  state  that  it  is  owing  in  a  great  measure  to 
the  faith,  zeal,  and  generosity  of  the  Irish  people  who  have  immi- 
grated to  these  shores,  and  their  descendants.  We  are  far  from 
wishing  to  detract  from  the  merit  of  other  nationalities ;  but  the 
yast  influence  which  the  Irish  population  has  exerted  in  extend 


4:54 


THE  "EXODUS "  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


ing  the  domain  of  the  Church  is  well  deserving  of  notice,  because 
it  conveys  a  very  instructive  lesson.  The  wonderful  history  of 
the  Irish  nation  has  always  forced  upon  us  the  conviction  that, 
like  the  chosen  generation  of  Abraham  (previous  to  their  rejec- 
tion of  the  Messiah,  of  course),  they  were  destined,  in  the  designs 
of  Providence,  to  a  special  mission  for  the  preservation  and  prop- 
agation of  the  true  faith.  This  faith,  so  pure,  so  lovely,  so  gen- 
erous, displays  itself  in  every  region  of  the  globe.  To  its  vitality 
and  energy  must  we  attribute,  to  a  very  great  extent,  the  rapid 
increase  in  the  number  of  churches  and  other  institutions  which 
have  sprung  up  and  are  still  springing  up  in  the  United  States, 
and  to  the  same  source  are  the  clergy  mainly  indebted  for  their 
support  in  the  exercise  of  their  pastoral  ministry.  It  cannot  be 
denied,  and  we  bear  a  cheerful  testimony  to  the  fact,  that  hun- 
dreds of  clergymen,  who  are  laboring  for  the  salvation  of  souls, 
would  starve,  and  their  efforts  for  the  cause  of  religion  would  be 
in  vain,  but  for  the  generous  aid  they  receive  from  the  children 
of  Erin,  who  know,  for  the  most  part,  how  to  appreciate  the  ben- 
efits of  religion,  and  who  therefore  joyfully  contribute  of  their 
worldly  means  to  purchase  the  spiritual  blessings  which  the 
Church  dispenses." 

To  this  we  may  add  that  what  Mr.  White  so  expressly  states 
of  the  generous  support  given  by  the  Irish  people  to  the  clergy 
is  equally  true  when  extended  to  the  thousand  inmates  of  orphan 
asylums,  reformatories,  schools,  convents,  and  of  all  the  charita- 
ble institutions  generally  which  are  specially  fostered  by  the 
Church  for  the  common  good  of  humanity.  To  quote  only  one 
fact  recorded  in  a  note  to  Mr.  Maguire's  book,  a  Sister  of  Mercy 
tells  us  what  the  Irish  working-class  has  done  for  the  order  in 
Cincinnati :  "  The  convent,  schools,  and  House  of  Mercy,  in 
which  the  good  works  of  our  Institute  are  progressing,  were  pur- 
chased in  1861  at  a  considerable  outlay.  This,  together  with  the 
repairs,  alterations,  furnishing,  etc.,  was  defrayed  by  the  work- 
ing-class of  Irish  people,  who  have  been  and  are  to  us  most  de- 
voted, and  by  their  generosity  have  enabled  us  up  to  the  present 
time  to  carry  out  successfully  our  works  of  mercy  and  charity." 

It  may  be  stated,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that  the  same 
thing  might  be  asserted  by  the  superior  of  almost  every  Catholic 
establishment  in  the  country,  were  an  opportunity  afforded  them 
of  coming  forward  in  like  manner. 

All  this  is  well  known  to  those  who  are  in  the  least  ac- 
quainted with  the  history  and  workings  of  those  institutions ; 
but  very  little  noise  is  made  about  it,  according  to  the  rule  of 
the  Gospel  which  recommends  us  to  do  good  in  such  a  manner 
that  "  the  left  hand  may  not  know  what  the  right  hand  doeth." 
Nothing  is  more  Christian  than  such  silent  approval,  and  the 
eternal  reward,  which  must  follow,  is  so  overwhelmingly  great 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS.  455 


that  the  applause  of  the  world  may  well  be  disregarded.  But 
as  constant  good  offices  are  apt  to  beget  indifference  in  those 
who  benefit  most  by  them,  there  are  not  wanting  some  good 
people  who  seem  to  labor  under  the  impression  that  really  the 
Irish  deserve  scarcely  any  thanks  ;  that  every  thing  which  they 
do  comes  so  naturally  from  them,  it  is  only  what  one  could 
expect  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  that,  it  being  nothing  more, 
after  all,  than  their  simple  duty,  it  becomes  a  very  ordinary 
thing. 

It  may  be  superfluous  to  say  that  if  all  this  was  expected 
from  them,  and  if  it  be,  as  it  really  is,  after  all  only  a  very 
ordinary  thing  on  their  part,  this  fact  is  precisely  what  makes 
them  a  most  extraordinary  people,  as  expectations  of  this  nature 
which  may  be  most  natural  are  of  that  peculiar  kind  of  "  great 
expectations  "  magnificent  in  prospect,  but  very  delusive  in  fact ; 
and  certainly  they  would  not  be  looked  for  as  a  matter  of  course 
in  any  other  nation.  Let  any  one  reflect  on  the  few  details  here 
furnished,  let  him  add  others  from  his  own  information,  and  the 
whole  thing  will  appear,  as  it  truly  is,  most  wonderful,  and  only 
to  be  explained  by  the  great  and  merciful  designs  of  God,  as  Dr. 
White  has  just  indicated — designs  intrusted  on  this  occasion  to 
faithful  servants  whose  generous  hearts  and  pure  souls  opened 
up  to  the  mission  intrusted  to  them,  to  its  glorious  fulfilment 
so  far,  and  to  a  greater  unfolding  still  in  time  to  come. 

In  order  to  understand,  as  ought  to  be  understood,  more 
fully  the  weight  of  the  burden  they  so  cheerfully  undertook  to 
bear,  a  few  reflections  on  the  subject  of  religious  and  charitable 
institutions  will  not  be  considered  out  of  place. 

The  Romans — those  master-organizers,  who  reduced  to  a 
perfect  system  every  branch  of  government,  legislation,  war, 
and  religion — never  abandoned,  never  intrusted  to  the  initiative 
of  the  people,  the  care  of  providing  the  means  for  any  thing 
which  the  state  ought  to  supply.  The  public  religious  establish- 
ments were  all  endowed,  the  colleges  of  the  priests  enjoyed 
large  revenues,  and  the  expenses  of  worship  were  supplied  from 
the  same  source.  To  the  fisc  in  general  belonged  the  duty  of 
supporting  the  armories,  the  courts  of  law,  and  the  large  estab- 
lishments provided  for  the  comfort  and  instruction  of  the  peo- 
ple, the  baths,  libraries,  and  regular  amusements.  The  private 
munificence  of  emperors,  great  patricians,  and  conquerors,  under- 
took to  supply  occasional  shows  of  an  extraordinary  character  in 
the  theatres,  amphitheatre,  and  the  circus. 

There  was  no  room  left  for  charity  in  the  whole  plan.  In- 
deed, the  meaning  of  that  word  was  unknown  to  them ;  for  it 
cannot  be  properly  applied  to  the  regular  distribution  of  money 
or  cereals  to  the  pleas  :  as  this  was  one  of  those  generosities 
which  are  necessary,  and  was  only  practised  in  order  to  keep  the 


456 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


lower  orders  of  citizens  in  idle  content  and  out  of  mischief,  as 
you  would  a  wild  animal  which  you  dare  not  chain  :  you  must 
feed  him.  The  really  poor,  the  slaves,  the  maimecl,  the  helpless, 
were  left  to  their  hard  fate,  they  being  apparently  unworthy  of 
pity  because  thev  excited  no  fear. 

1  et  the  system  was  fruitful  in  its  results.  As  soon  as  Chris- 
tianity was  seated  on  the  throne,  nothing  was  easier  than  to 
transfer  the  immense  sums  contributed  by  regular  funds,  or 
which  were  the  product  of  taxes,  from  one  object  to  another ; 
and  thus  the  Christian  clergy  and  churches  were  supported  as 
had  been  the  colleges  and  temples  of  the  pagan  priests,  by  the 
revenues  derived  from  large  estates  attached  to  the  various 
corporations.  Thus  did  Constantine  and  his  successors  become 
the  munificent  benefactors  of  the  Church  in  Eome  and  through- 
out the  whole  empire. 

Meanwhile,  the  "  collections  of  money  "  among  the  faithful, 
which  were  first  organized,  as  we  read  in  the  epistles  of  the 
apostles,  and  afterward  systematized  still  better  in  Rome  under 
the  first  popes,  soon  grew  into  disuse,  at  least  to  the  extent  to 
which  they  once  prevailed  ;  the  new  charitable  institutions,  such 
as  the  care  of  the  poor,  of  widows  and  orphans,  being  under- 
taken bv  the  Church  at  large,  while  the  expenses  of  the  whole 
were  defrayed  by  the  revenues  accruing  from  the  donations  of 
princes,  or  the  bequests  of  wealthy  Christians. 

The  consequence  was  that,  throughout  the  whole  Christian 
world,  all  religious,  literary,  and  charitable  institutions  enjoyed 
large  revenues,  and  there  was  no  need  of  applying  to  the  gen- 
erosity of  the  common  people  for  contributions. 

After  the  successful  invasion  of  the  barbarians,  the  same  sys- 
tem held  good  ;  and  history  records  how  richly  endowed  were 
the  churches  built,  the  monasteries  founded,  the  universities  and 
colleges  opened,  by  the  once  ferocious  Franks,  Germans,  or 
Northmen  even,  tamed  and  subdued  by  the  precepts  and  prac- 
tices of  Christianity. 

Vfe  know  how  the  immense  wealth,  which  had  been  devoted 
to  such  holy  purposes  by  the  wise  generosity  of  rulers  or  rich 
nobles,  became  in  course  of  time  an  eyesore  and  object  of  envy 
to  the  worldlv,  and  that  the  chief  incentive  to  the  "Reformers  " 
tor  doing  their  work  of  "  reformation  "  thoroughly  was  the  pros- 
pect of  the  golden  harvest  to  be  reaped  by  the  destruction  of  the 
Catholic  Church. 

Rut  the  very  large  amounts  required  to  satisfy  the  aspirations 
introduced  into  the  heart  of  humanity,  by  the  religion  of  Christ, 
may  give  us  an  adequate  idea  of  what  Christian  civilization 
really  costs.  It  is  foolish  to  imagine  a  sane  man  really  believing 
that  those  generous  founders  of  pious  institutions,  who  devoted, 
by  gift  or  bequest,  such  large  estates  and  revenues  to  the  various 


THE  "EXODUS "  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


457 


objects  of  religion,  science,  and  charity,  lavished  their  wealth  to 
no. purpose,  and  literally  deprived  themselves  and  their  posterity 
of  what  was  their  own  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  in  idleness 
useless  drones  and  corrupt  people.  Despite  all  that  their  de- 
spoilers  have  said,  all  those  great  public  establishments  worked 
an  infinite  good  to  society,  and  their  sudden  disappearance  at  the 
time  of  the  Reformation  created  a  void  which  has  never  since 
been  filled  by  all  the  poor-laws  and  state  institutions  ever  de- 
vised. 

That  mismanagement  may  have  crept  into  some  of  those 
funded  charities  is  very  possible ;  gross  mismanagement  is  not 
unknown  in  many  of  the  public  charities  in  England,  particularly, 
even  in  these  sharp  days  ;  a  reform,  if  properly  carried  out,  would 
doubtless  have  done  good  in  many  cases ;  but  destruction  is  a 
poor  mode  of  reform,  and  appropriating  to  one's  self  what  had 
been  solemnly  devoted  to  the  good  of  atl  is  scarcely  generosity, 
and  cannot  well  be  styled  even  just  retaliation. 

But  when  we  reflect  further,  that  in  all  European  states,  pre- 
vious to  the  Reformation,  a  large  percentage  of  all  lands  and  real 
estate,  in  addition  to  tithes,  was  consecrated  to  the  service  of  reli- 
gion, science,  and  charity,  we  may  form  some  idea  of  what  lay 
before  the  immigrants  when  they  began  their  work  in  right  ear- 
nest, but  with  almost  empty  hands. 

It  may  be  objected  that  they  undertook  too  much ;  that  good, 
substantial,  but  not  too  expensive  churches,  would  have  sufficed, 
as  they  were  required,  inasmuch  as  the  new  Constitution  of  the 
country  had  decreed  the  total  separation  of  Church  and  state-: 
but,  as  the  people  on  all  sides  contributed  by  tax  to  educational 
and  charitable  purposes  in  the  shape  of  public  schools,  asylums, 
and  hospitals,  the  new-comers  would  have  done  well  to  fall  in 
with  the  spirit  of  the  country,  and  take  in  common  with  all 
others  their  due  share  of  the  public  bounty,  particularly  as  they 
were  called  upon  to  contribute  toward  them  by  duties  and  taxa- 
tion. 

The  question  of  churches,  expensive  or  inexpensive,  may 
pass :  what  has  been  said  on  the  subject  of  cathedrals  may  suf- 
fice to  show  that  "  good,  substantial  church-edifices,"  as  they 
are  called,  do  not  and  ought  not  satisfy  the  aspirations  of  the 
Catholic  heart.  A  word  only  is  required  on  those  other  exten- 
sive and  expensive  establishments,  without,  however,  entering 
upon  the  "  school  question,"  which  by  this  time  may  be  consid- 
ered settled  for  all  true  and  intelligent  Catholics. 

As  usual,  we  merely  confine  ourselves  to  a  few  desultory 
remarks,  some  of  which  may  tend  to  give  a  new  direction  to  a 
discussion  which  our  present  purpose  does  not  allow  us  to  enter 
upon  at  length. 

It  is  time  for  all  to  know3  and  know  sufficiently,  why  it  was 


458 


TIIE  "EXODUS"  AXD  ITS  EFFECTS. 


impossible  for  Catholics  to  be  satisfied  in  conscience  with  what 
the  country  did  and  provided  for  all  in  the  shape  of  schools, 
asylums,  refuges,  hospitals,  etc. ;  but,  as  the  great  bulk  of  non- 
Catholics  in  this  country  can  scarcely  form  a  right  idea  of  the 
true  Catholic  feeling  on  this  point,  and  as,  even  among  church- 
members,  all  do  not  seem  to  have  thoroughly  understood  the  sub- 
ject and  grasped  the  difficulty,  we  step  aside  a  moment  to  devote 
a  few  words  to  it ;  without,  however,  losing  sight,  for  a  single 
instant,  of  the  question  which  really  occupies  us — the  incredible 
expense  undergone  by  the  Catholic  body  in  the  United  States 
under  the  initiative  and  guidance  of  their  regularly-appointed 
pastors. 

At  the  moment  of  making  a  few  reflections  on  this  point,  it 
is  for  the  writer  an  agreeable  duty  to  state  his  conviction  that, 
as  far  as  the  great  majority  of  the  legislators  and  simple  citizens 
are  concerned,  it  was  never  their  intent  to  drag,  whether  by  fair 
means  or  foul,  the  posterity  of  Irishmen  into  the  ranks  of  heresy 
or  infidelity.  Unhappily,  all  cannot  be  acquitted  of  that  intent, 
and  it  is  well  known  that  extensive  organizations  did  and  do 
exist  for  that  very  purpose ;  yet,  assuredly,  the  great  majority 
of  the  nation  never  joined  in  that  unholy  conspiracy,  and  hon- 
estly meant  to  be  fair  and  impartial  to  all. 

But  events  anterior  to  the  Constitution,  and  a  long-established 
order  of  things  of  which  they  were  not  sufficiently  aware,  and 
which  had  probably  never  attracted  their  attention,  rendered 
necessary  the  step  taken  by  the  priests  and  people,  and  com- 
pelled them  to  charge  themselves  with  a  burden,  whose  weight 
can  only  be  fully  known  to  those  who  are  well  versed  in  the 
whole  subject. 

With  regard  to  anterior  events,  it  is  needless  to  remark  that 
the  English  colonies  of  North  America  were  subject  to  the  gen- 
eral laws  of  the  mother-country,  and  thus  the  penal  enactments 
against  Catholics  were,  as  previously  seen,  in  full  force  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.  The  country  was  thoroughly  Protestant, 
and  all  establishments  of  city,  county,  and  State,  were  under 
Protestant  rule,  which,  as  was  also  seen,  was  duly  enforced. 
Catholics,  who  were  thrown  upon  their  charity,  had  either  to 
conceal  their  religion  or  to  "  conform." 

When,  with  the  independence  of  the  country,  Catholics  re- 
gained their  rights,  it  may  be  said  that  those  rights  did  not  ex- 
tend beyond  the  theory,  and  that,  as  has  been  justly  remarked 
and  proved,  the  Federal  Government  alone  adopted  "liberal" 
principles,  the  States  being  left  with  full  power  to  adopt  other 
rules  for  State  establishments.  Hence,  "  disabilities  "  still  con- 
tinued in  many  places,  and  are  not  yet  even  entirely  abolished. 
At  all  events,  the  anterior  state  of  things  could  scarcelv  be  ex- 

"i  i 

pected  to  disappear  in  a  day ;  and  it  was  clear,  at  first  sight,  that 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


459 


a  very  long  time  would  be  required  for  it  to,  as  it  were,  wear 
itself  away,  and  drop  out  of  sight  altogether  :  so  that,  the  Cath- 
olics being  so  few  at  the  end  of  last  century,  and  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this,  many  individual  cases  of  oppression  could  not  fail 
to  be  of  daily  occurrence,  in  places,  particularly,  where  the  popu- 
lation remained  ardently,  that  is,  fiercely,  Protestant.  It  is  not 
an  easy  thing,  indeed  it  is  utterly  impossible,  to  change  sud- 
denly the  ideas,  traditions,  customs  of  a  whole  country.  Such 
a  change  must  be  left  to  the  wearing  friction  of  time,  and  the 
slow  progress  of  justice,  which,  like  Prayer,  in  Homer,  is  lame 
at  first,  and  slow  to  reach  the  footstool  of  Jove's  throne. 

Again,  the  poor  immigrants,  who  were  accustomed,  nay,  com- 
pelled, to  bow  down  under  such  tyranny  at  home,  could  not  be 
expected  suddenly  to  stand  up  and  insist  boldly  on  their  just 
claims  to  the  privileges  of  citizens,  when,  as  yet,  they  scarcely 
knew  what  those  precise  privileges  were.  The  ear  of  his  priest, 
his  chief,  his  only  organ,  in  fact,  could  not  often  be  reached ; 
and,  even  if  he  could  pour  his  grievances  into  it,  the  voice  of  his 
protector  was  too  often  powerless  in  prejudiced  communities, 
which  were  ruled  for  the  most  part  by  prejudiced  officials,  accus- 
tomed to  esteem  as  their  chief  right  what  in  reality  was  only  the 
power  of  oppression. 

Thus,  it'  an  Irishman  on  his  arrival  was  compelled  through 
sickness  to  seek  refuge  in  a  hospital,  or,  worse  still,  in  a  poor- 
house,  he  knew  that  for  him  there  were  no  rites  of  religion,  Ms 
religion,  to  console  him,  even  at  the  hour  of  death;  and,  that  in 
the  event  of  his  dying  there,  his  children  would  be  brought  up 
in  hatred  of  the  religion  of  their  baptism,  and,  if  young  enough, 
their  very  name  would  be  changed,  so  that  they  should  not  know 
even  their  own  family.1 

We  can  only  look  upon  this  as  perfectly  natural,  and  liable 
to  occur  wherever  a  long-established  order  of  things  has  favored 
it,  an  order  which  it  is  impossible  to  abolish  all  at  once. 

The  denial  of  justice  and  right,  which  that  rooted  custom 
entailed,  became  a  crying  evil  when  the  question  was  no  longer 
confined  to  a  few  isolated  cases,  though  bad  enough  there,  but 
scarcely  perceptible  in  the  general  contentment  of  the  happy  and 
prosperous  citizens  of  the  young  republic. 

1  The  writer  remembers  the  time  when,  only  about  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  a 
Catholic  clergyman  had  never  been  allowed  to  enter  a  poor-house  distant  a  few  mile3 
from  New  York  City,  and  that  the  first  who  did  enter  by  stealth,  for  the  purpose 
of  administering  the  last  consolations  of  religion  to  a  dying  Irishman,  was  shame- 
fully abused  by  the  head  of  the  establishment.  It  is  true  that,  on  an  appeal  made 
to  the  supervisors  of  the  county,  the  clergyman's  remonstrance  met  with  fair  consid- 
eration, and  the  injustice  was  prohibited  for  the  future.  But  would  this  reparation 
have  taken  place  at  a  greater  distance  from  New  York  ?  And,  did  not  the  head  of  the 
establishment  dare  to  act  as  he  did,  because  assured  by  the  former  state  of  things 
that  he  would  be  sustained  ? 


400 


rilE  " EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


But  when  that  vast  wave  of  immigration  suddenly  rose  and 
cast  upon  its  shores  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Catholics  yearly, 
then  did  the  injustice  show  itself  in  the  most  flagrant  and  bitter 
form.  Wherever  that  wave  spread  and  left  the  large  floating 
population  described  in  almost  every  town,  city,  village,  and 
hamlet  of  the  country,  North  and  West,  the  Catholic  immigrants 
were  often  denied  the  rites  of  their  religion  in  the  various  charita- 
ble establishments  whither  they  were  driven  to  seek  admission  ; 
their  children  were  often  taken  from  them  and  sent  to  Protestant 
refuges  and  reformatories ;  or,  if  the  parents  died,  they  were 
given  in  charge  to  people  thinking  it  a  duty  they  owed  to  God, 
to  bring  them  up  in  hatred  of  the  faith  for  which  their  ancestors 
had  suffered  and  died. 

It  became  an  absolute  necessity  for  Catholics  to  adopt  meas- 
ures for  the  protection  of  themselves  and  their  children.  How 
long  will  this  necessity  continue  ?  It  is  impossible  to  say ;  for 
those  old  customs  have  run  so  deeply  in  the  grain  of  some  of  the 
American  people  that  they  are  yet  far  from  being  eradicated,  and 
it  would  be  hard  to  foretell  when  the  public  establishments  of  the 
country  will  be  entirely  safe  for  the  dearest  interests  of  the  chil- 
dren of  the  Church.  In  a  few  localities,  they  may  already  be  so  ; 
but,  in  general,  they  certainly  are  not.  Justice  is  lame,  and  can- 
not yet  run  swiftly. 

Thus,  nothing  was  done  but  what  was  absolutely  needed ; 
and  the  heavy  burdens  imposed  on  the  shoulders  of  the  Catholics, 
as  soon  as  they  arrived,  had  to  be  borne  with  patient  ardor  and 
blind  confidence  in  God. 

Let  us  now  turn  our  eyes  to  another  tributary  of  that  Irish 
stream.  The  Australian  colony  of  this  missionary  people  pos- 
sesses special  features  well  worthy  attentive  study,  as  they  will 
ultimately  offer  a  very  powerful  aid  to  the  resurrection  of  the 
mother-country.  Throughout  the  previous  narratives,  this  has 
been  the  great  thought  before  our  mind,  and  every  thing  tended 
to  the  elucidation  of  it,  and  the  conclusion  of  this  chapter  will 
show  that  nothing  inappropriate  has  been  advanced,  nor  with- 
out due  reference  to  the  starting-point. 

It  is  our  hope  that  the  few  words  already  said,  on  the  position 
of  Australia  with  respect  to  Asia,  may  have  convinced  our 
readers  of  the  design,  on  the  part  of  Providence,  with  respect  to 
the  future  conversion  of  many  nations  to  Catholicity  over  that 
vast  Asiatic  Continent ;  and  that  this  design  was  made  clear  by 
the  very  fact  of  the  possession  taken  by  Europeans  of  that  great 
and  almost  deserted  island  to  which  our  eyes  now  turn.  Aus- 
tralia is  evidently  destined  before  long  to  be  inhabited  only  by 
men  of  Japhetic  blood,  and  so  to  aid  in  the  spread  of  Japhetic 
manners  and  institutions  among  the  dense  and  long-removed 
populations  of  the  dim  Orient.    America,  now  completely  Eu- 


THE  " EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EPFECTS. 


461 


ropeanized,  in  blood,  language,  and  customs,  has  taken  the  lead ; 
Australia  must  follow. 

As  was  previously  remarked,  those  densely-peopled  districts 
of  Eastern  Asia  have,  as  yet,  scarcely  been  touched  by  Christian 
ity,  owing  principally  to  their  distance  from  Europe.  Hence,  it 
is  the  great  boast  of  infidels  that,  after  all,  Christianity,  as  far  as 
numbers  go,  enrolls  onlv  a  minority  of  the  human  race  among 
its  adherents.  The  worshippers  of  Buddha  are  more  numerous 
than  the  worshippers  of  Christ,  not  to  speak  of  the  followers  of 
Mohammed.  This,  we  belive,  is  a  scandal  and  a  stumbling-block 
in  the  eves  of  manv,  who  are  not  children  of  the  Church,  or 
who,  if  born  within  her  bosom,  have,  through  education,  or 
association,  or  both,  almost  lost  their  faith,  and  who  are  only  too 
happy  to  catch  at  any  paltry  motives  for  disbelief  of  apparent 
difficult  solution. 

Is  Buddhism,  especially,  long  to  retain  its  superiority  in 
point  of  numbers  over  Catholicity  \  We  believe  not,  we  nope 
not ;  and  our  hope  rests  principally  on  the  near  approach  of  the 
time  when  the  "  sons  of  Japhet  will  dwell  in  the  tents  of  Sem." 
Catholicity,  as  has  been  shown,  is  a  growth.  Once  fairly  planted 
on  the  soil  of  Asia,  by  men  of  the  blood  of  Japhet  and  of  the 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  result  is  to  us  settled,  for  the 
growth  of  the  tree  is  infallibly  destined  to  choke  up  the  weeds. 

And  one  of  our  chief  motives  for  entertaining  that  firm  hope 
is  not  the  success  which  has  so  far  attended  the  efforts  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  those  distant  lands,  remarkable  as  it  has 
been,  with  so  many  difficulties  in  the  way  and  so  little  help 
tendered  bv  governments  or  wealthv  men  ;  nor  is  it  the  success 
which,  so  far,  has  attended  the  Catholic  Church,  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  the  miserable  failure  which  has  greeted  the  efforts  of  the 
numerous  and  wealthy  Protestant  sects,  with  all  the  favor  lav- 
ished upon  them  by  Protestant  governments,  and  even  our  own 
of  America,  as  was  so  convincingly  proved  in  that  most  interest- 
ing work  of  Mr.  Marshall — "  Christian  Missions."  No,  our  hope 
rests  on  entirely  different  grounds. 

One  of  the  most  powerful  causes  which  led  to  the  final 
triumph  of  Christianity  in  the  Roman  Empire  was,  the  constancy 
exhibited  by  the  martyrs  to  the  admiration  and  conviction  of 
unbelievers,  which  could  only  come  as  a  source  of  grace  from 
Heaven.  Tertullian's  words  have  been  admitted  bv  all  Christian 
writers  as  an  axiom  :  "  The  blood  of  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the 
Church ! " 

All  the  coasts  of  Eastern  Asia,  and  of  the  adjoining  islands 
composing  the  empire  of  Japan,  have  for  nearly  three  hundred 
years  been  sanctified  by  the  blood,  almost  ceaselessly  poured  out, 
of  as  true  martvrs  as  ever  were  the  founders  of  Christianity, 
whether  in  the  lioinan  or  the  Persian  Empire.    All  the  govern- 


462 


TIIE  "EXODUS"  AXD  ITS  EFFECTS. 


ments  of  those  countries — with  a  single  exception,  that  of  Siam 
— have  been  guilty  of  the  crime  whose  punishment  was  visited 
so  heavily  on  the  Roman  emperors  and  Persian  kings.  The 
emperors  of  China,  the  rulers  of  Japan,  the  kings  of  Corea  and 
of  Anam,  have  shown  their  hatred  of  the  Christian  name  to  be 
as  deadly,  have  shed  Christian  blood  with  as  great  and  evident 
a  zest  as  ever  did  Decius,  Diocletian,  Galerius,  and  their  fel- 
lows in  Rome,  or  the  Sapors  in  Persia.  The  kings  of  Siam 
have  been  the  only  Eastern  rulers  who  have  not  imbrued  their 
hands  in  Christian  blood,  and  yet,  strange  to  say,  Christianity  is 
apparently  less  firmly  rooted  in  the  peninsula  of  India  beyond 
the  Ganges,  in  Siam  particularly,  than  in  any  other  region  of 
Eastern  Asia.    This  truly  confirms  Tertullian's  axiom. 

Taking  all  things  into  account,  we  consider  the  Oriental 
persecutors  of  the  Church  in  modern  time  to  have  surpassed  in 
cruelty  and  systematic  atrocity  the  persecutors  of  old.  This 
persecution  has  now  lasted  for  three  hundred  years :  a  number 
consecrated  in  the  first  annals  of  our  holy  religion,  and  which, 
it  may  be  hoped,  will  in  the  future  ages  be  to  the  Catholics  of 
Eastern  Asia  the  consecrated  number  of  their  ecclesiastical 
history,  after  which  another  "  peace  of  Constantine  "  will  follow 
— a  peace  perhaps  due  to  no  great  ruler  received  into  the  fold, 
but  to  the  unconscious  aid  afforded  by  the  spread  of  the  race  of 
Japhet  on  those  shores,  an  aid  as  unconscious  in  its  influence  on 
Catholicity  as  the  "  liberalism  "  of  Korth  America,  now  repro- 
duced in  Australia  and  Ocean ica,  but  none  the  less  effectual  on 
that  account. 

True,  these  are  merely  conjectures ;  but  conjectures,  it  may 
be  observed,  for  which  there  are  very  fair  grounds  in  the  present 
shaping  of  events  and  the  direction  taken  by  public  opinion. 
That  the  Irish  will  play  a  prominent  part  in  those  glorious 
events,  at  least  by  preparing  the  soil  and  planting  Catholicity 
firmly  in  those  nearly  Europeanized  countries,  is  our  firm  hope  ; 
and  the  reasons  for  entertaining  this  hope  will  be  seen  in  the 
details  of  the  new  emigration. 

In  1848,  the  government  and  people  of  Australia  refused  to 
receive  any  more  convicts  from  the  mother-country,  and  even 
went  so  far  as  to  send  back  to  England  a  ship-load  recently 
arrived.  Just  about  that  time,  England,  having  come  to  loot 
with  favor  on  the  policy  of  Irish  emigration,  held  out  induce- 
ments to  those  willing  to  go  to  the  antipodes  ;  in  many  cases 
their  passage  was  paid ;  or,  if  money  was  asked  of  them,  the  full 
value  was  returned  in  land-certificates,  which  they  could  realize 
on  th»)ir  arrival  in  the  new  country.  The  British  government 
at  last  saw  the  wisdom  of  reserving  for  her  own  colonies  those 
hardy  adventurers  who  flocked  in  such  numbers  to  the  shores  of 
the  United  States. 


THE  "EXODUS"  ASTD  ITS  EFFECTS. 


463 


This  coming  at  a  time  when  the  "  great  famine  "  was  still 
raging,  large  numbers  accepted  the  offer  of  the  government,  and 
the  Catholic  population  began  to  increase  rapidly  in  Australia, 
There,  at  least,  were  the  Irish  at  liberty  to  devote  themselves  to 
an  occupation  which  had  been  peculiar  to  Ireland  from  time 
immemorial,  that  of  grazing  and  cattle-raising.  The  new  con- 
tinent turned  out  to  be  the  best  adapted  for  the  breeding  of 
sheep,  perhaps  in  the  whole  world  ;  and  wool  immediately  be- 
came one  of  the  most  profitable  exports  of  the  country. 

But,  though  many  Irish  settled  there  as  farmers,  that  provi- 
dential rush  to  the  cities  which  we  saw  in  North  America  was 
also  one  of  the  features  of  this  new  Irish  immigration.  Hence, 
as  in  America,  bishoprics  were  soon  found  necessary  in  all  the 
large  towns  ;  and  Australia  was  in  1846  formed  into  an  ecclesias- 
tical province,  including  the  archbishopric  of  Sydney  and  the 
episcopal  sees  of  Adelaide  and  Hobart  Town.  In  1862,  the 
Metropolitan  Church  of  Sydney  counted  five  suffragan  bishops, 
beside  those  of  Auckland,  in  New  Zealand,  and  Brisbane,  in 
Queensland.  And  the  few  hundred  oppressed  Catholics  who, 
forty  years  before,  formed  the  entire  Church  in  Australia,  had 
already  increased  to  more  than  two  hundred  thousand  souls. 

The  tree  had  been  planted,  and  its  growth  was  a  matter  of 
necessity. 

To  speak  of  all  the  religious,  educational,  and  charitable  in- 
stitutions which  grouped  themselves  around  the  newly-established 
episcopal  centres,  and  to  refer  to  the  astonishing  liberality  dis- 
played by  the  poor  immigrants,  would  be  a  source  of  new  won- 
der, but  only  a  repetition  of  what  has  gone  before.  The  only 
remark  that  here,  suggests  itself  to  our  mind,  struck  as  it  is  with 
admiration,  is  one  which  but  tends  to  increase  that  admiration, 
the  reflection,  namely,  that  the  generosity  of  the  Irish  people, 
not  content  with  the  wide  field  opened  up  to  its  workings  in 
North  America,  chose  also  the  Continent  of  Australia  whereon 
to  pour  forth  the  inexhaustible  treasures  of  its  charity. 

There  was,  however,  a  feature  exhibited  on  this  new  soil 
which  was  altogether  unknown  in  the  United  States,  and  scarce- 
ly possible  in  Canada,  but  which  will  place  in  the  hands  of  the 
Irish  in  Australia  a  far  greater  facility  for  helping  their  native 
country.  In  the  United  States  every  inducement  is  held  out  to 
them  to  forget  their  former  life,  and,  by  becoming  citizens  of  a 
republic  which  has  long  been  separated  from  England,  to  merge 
themselves  into  a  people  to  whom  Ireland  is  a  foreign  country  ; 
not  so  in  Australia. 

Whatever  the  future  of  this  new  continent  may  be,  within 
whatever  period,  of  greater  or  less  length,  it  may  seek  and  secure 
its  independence  from  the  British  Empire,  at  present  it  is  not, 
and  for  some  time  to  come  will  not  be,  independent.    In  those 


4:64:  TIIE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 

numerous  and  rising  colonies,  therefore,  Englishmen  remain 
English,  Scotchmen  Scotch,  and  Irishmen  Irish.  The  three  na- 
tionalities have  never  been  fused  into  one  at  home ;  they  can- 
not consequently  in  the  colonies  ;  and  here  a  word  of  remark  is 
called  for. 

The  British  Empire,  which  in  our  second  chapter  we  have 
shown  from  a  sketch  of  Cesare  Cantu  to  be  spread  all  over  the 
world,  is  very  weak  at  its  centre.  There  it  is  called  the  United 
Kingdom  ;  formed,  that  is,  of  three  States,  which  so  far  have 
never  so  combined  as  to  produce  a  perfect  moral  union.  Their 
union  is  altogether  political.  One  king,  one  Parliament,  one 
general  system  of  laws — such  constitute  the  main  elements  of 
its  unity.  Even  the  Scotchmen,  who  inhabit  the  very  soil  of 
Great  Britain,  are  almost  as  strongly  Scotch  as  they  were  under 
their  native  kings.  Not  one  of  them,  will  call  or  allow  himself 
to  be  called  an  Englishman,  and  will  scarcely  consent  even  to 
the  title  British.  Yet,  ever  since  the  accession  of  the  Stuarts  to 
the  British  throne,  Scotland  has  never  claimed  for  herself  an  in- 
dependent Parliament ;  and  she  certainly  does  not  dream  of  ask- 
ing for  it  now. 

The  feelings  of  Irishmen  on  this  point  are  pretty  generally 
known  ;  the  idea  of  union  with  England  is  to-day  as  distasteful 
as  when  it  was  first  foisted  on  them.  Moreover,  their  antipathy 
to  union  is  far  from  being  restricted  to  parliamentary  unity  ;  it 
runs  through  all  things  —  religion,  political  leanings,  material 
interests,  social  manners,  natural  disposition.  Even  language 
has  not  yet  become  universally  common  ;  and,  though  Divine 
Providence  has  bent  the  Irish  to  accept  the  English  tongue,  that 
it  might  serve  them  in  their  great  mission,  yet  there  are  thou- 
sands of  Irish  people  still  who  do  not  understand  a  word  of  it. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  unity  of  the  United  Kingdom 
is  altogether  external  and  political  in  its  significance,  consisting 
merely  in  all  three  countries  having  the  same  Parliament  ana 
living  under  the  same  constitution.  So  palpable  is  this  that 
John  Bright,  the  great  advocate  of  reform  and  liberalism,  can- 
not be  persuaded  to  side  with  the  Irish  in  their  petition  for 
"  home-rule,"  because  he  considers  that  it  would  be  a  disruption 
of  the  British  Empire. 

But  the  great  result  of  that  want  of  moral  unity  is  that,  even 
with  the  one  Parliament,  the  distinctions  of  nationality,  on  the 
part  of  the  Irish  and  English  at  least,  exist  as  strongly  as  they 
did  three  hundred  years  ago,  when  each  country  had  its  own 
Parliament.  And  so  they  remain  wherever  they  may  be,  with- 
out any  reproach  as  to  their  loyalty ;  so  that  an  Irishman  in 
Australia  may  be  as  loyal  as  any  British  subject,  and  yet  remain 
6trongly  Irish  in  his  sympathies,  views,  language,  acts,  and 
boasts.    Thus,  when  the  Australian  colonies  become,  as  they 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


405 


promise  to  do,  strongly  imbued  with.  Irish  blood,  they  will 
form  a  powerful  ally  to  the  mother-country  of  all  Irishmen — their 
native  island. 

It  is  not  thus  in  the  United  States.  Having  sworn  allegiance 
to  their  new  country,  their  very  religion  impresses  on  them  the 
obligation  to  be  faithful  to  her,  to  identify  themselves  with  her, 
and  their  interests  with  hers ;  to  tender  her,  as  a  country,  their 
first  affection,  and  the  claim  to  their  very  blood,  if  necessity  de- 
mands it.  And,  to  put  the  case  in  its  strongest  light — though 
love  and  attachment  to  their  former  country  is  allowed  them, 
and  it  would  be  monstrous,  were  it  possible,  to  forget  her  en- 
tirely— supposing  the  true  interests  of  both  were  to  come  in  con- 
flict, they  would  be  compelled  to  side  with  the  country  of  their 
adoption,  however  painful  it  might  be  to  their  feelings.  They 
are  Americans,  and  no  longer  Irishmen  ;  and  all  know  that  this 
fact  is  very  clear  before  their  eyes,  and  that  the  Union  numbers 
among  her  citizens  none  truer  or  more  zealous  than  those  who 
once  were  Irishmen. 

In  Canada,  as  was  said,  the  case  is  not  altogether  the  same  as 
in  Australia.  There  Irishmen  are  not  at  liberty  to  show  the 
same  feeling  for  their  native  country,  and  prove  equally  useful 
to  her.  True,  Canada  is  only  a  colony  of  the  British  Empire, 
whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  new  "  Dominion ; "  and  Irish- 
men may  there  remain  as  true  Irishmen  as  at  home,  and  yet  be 
loyal  to  the  empire ;  but  they  seem  almost  paralyzed  in  their 
actions  as  Irish  people.  Strange  as  this  may  seem,  it  is  a  state 
of  things  felt  by  every  one  who  looks  at  it  in  the  right  way.  The 
only  explanation  that  can  be  given  is  that,  in  Canada,  the  duel 
of  interests  is,  so  to  speak,  "triangular,"  and  the  intermingling 
of  the  French-Canadian  element,  which  is  strongly  enlisted  on 
the  side  of  the  Catholic  Church,  but  which,  for  many  reasons, 
cannot  altogether  fuse  with  the  Irish  element,  deprives  the  Irish 
of  much  of  that  spontaneity  with  which  they  love,  whenever 
free,  to  act.  Whatever  the  cause  may  be,  the  fact  is,  we  believe, 
as  here  stated. 

The  position  of  Irish  colonists  in  Australia  is  therefore  excep- 
tional, and  productive  of  most  happy  results  for  Ireland  herself; 
on  which  account  the  progress  of  the  Irish  people  on  Australian 
soil  ought  to  be  looked  to  by  Catholics  with  an  extraordinary  de- 
gree of  interest.  It  bears  a  twofold  aspect,  religious  and  politi- 
cal. Of  the  religious  side  we  have  already  declined  to  speak, 
because  of  its  perfect  similarity  with  what  we  have  witnessed  in 
North  America.  However,  a  new  consideration,  full  of  interest, 
touches  the  hierarchy,  on  which  we  were  not  positively  called 
upon  to  speak  in  the  former  case,  so  that  a  word  on  the  subject 
may  now  be  permitted. 

The  fact  has  already  been  touched  upon,  that  the  Catholic 
30 


±66 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


Church,  particularly  of  late,  has  adopted  as  a  universal  policy, 
what  was  once  much  more  restricted  in  its  limits,  to  wit,  the  ap- 
pointment of  regular  bishops  throughout  the  world  almost,  and 
the  division  of  the  soil,  it  may  be  said,  of  the  whole  earthly 
globe,  into  regular  dioceses.  A  certain  number  of  places  still 
remain  as  apostolic  vicariates,  or  even  as  prefectships ;  but  the 
tendency  to  bring  all  those  districts  under  regularly-appointed 
bishops  as  soon  as  possible  is  now  universal,  even  in  Protestant 
countries.    Thus,  as  we  said,  is  possession  taken  of  the  soil. 

This  is,  we  believe,  the  great  final  step  to  impart  to  the  catho- 
licity of  the  Church  a  strict  meaning,  which  it  had  not  abso- 
lutely before. 

AVhoever  wishes  to  study  the  result  of  this  difference  has  only 
to  consult  the  respective  lists  of  the  bishops  who  assisted  at  the 
Council  of  Trent,  and  that  of  those  who  sat  but  yesterday  in  the 
Vatican,  keeping  under  his  eye  a  map  of  the  world  on  Mercator's 
projection. 

Limiting  ourselves  to  the  consideration  of  Australia,  it  is  now 
an  established  fact  that  this,  the  latest  continent  discovered  and 
settled  upon,  is  a  Catholic  field  occupied  by  Catholic  dioceses, 
whose  number  and  efficiency  will  increase  with  the  increasing 
population  ;  and  this  fact  is  owing  mainly  to  Irish  immigration. 
And  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  future  benefits  which 
are  to  arise  from  this  are  not  limited  in  extent  to  the  confines 
of  the  continent  itself,  but  will  pass  over  to  the  vast  regions  of 
the  neighboring  Asia,  where  bishops  also  are  waging  but  a  help- 
less struggle  in  the  midst  of  infidel  nations  and  ot  the  poorest 
flocks,  who  look  to  them  for  even  material  help,  which  must  come 
chiefly  from  Australia  and  America. 

But,  beyond  material  help,  where  are  the  future  missionaries 
to  be  found  for  those  vast  fields  now  ripe  for  the  harvest  ?  Is  it 
too  much  to  imagine  ere  long  the  establishment  of  a  seminary 
for  China,  Japan,  and  even  India,  in  Sydney  or  Adelaide  %  It 
would  be  a  great  surprise  to  us  to  know  that  the  thought  has  not 
already  struck  some  of  the  bishops  now  living,  of  the  day  when 
so  great  an  enterprise  may  be  possible,  or  even  set  on  foot.  It  is 
true  that  their  first  solicitude  is  to  plant  the  tree  on  the  soil 
marked  out  for  them  by  Providence  ;  but,  as  good  husbandmen, 
they  must  be  aware  that  there  is  no  tree  from  which  numbers  of 
seeas  are  not  detached  every  autumn  and  borne  away  on  the 
four  winds  of  heaven,  to  multiply  ten  or  twenty  fold  wherever 
they  fall ;  and  those  winds  fill  the  sails  of  vessels,  or  play  about 
the  steamships  already  starting  in  regular  lines  northward  and  to 
the  northeast,  fit  bearers  of  the  audax  Japeti  genus. 

Passing  from  religious  to  political  considerations,  a  new 
source  of  future  blessings  to  Ireland  will  be  found  in  the  Irish 
emigration  to  Australia.    Of  the  local  politics  of  those  new  colo- 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


467 


tries  the  writer  knows  nothing,  and,  even  if  he  did,  they  would 
not  find  a  place  here.  But  the  question  now  is  not  one  of  petty 
municipal  or  colonial  affairs,  so  much  as  of  the  position  in  gen- 
eral that  the  Irish  are  occupying  in  this  new  field  ;  a  position 
which  renders  them  capable  of  taking  an  active  part  in  the  poli- 
tics of  their  native  country,  the  connection  with  which  has  never 
been  broken  off.  They  are  and  remain,  as  they  ought  to  remain, 
Irishmen  still  in  their  new  destination.  In  the  mean  time  they 
grow  in  wealth,  intelligence,  and  social  standing,  on  that  vast 
field,  as  to-day  we  see  them  in  America.  The  past  misfortunes 
of  Ireland,  which  at  home  still  press  heavily  on  the  population, 
and  hinder  it  from  rising  to  its  just  level  as  speedily  as  it  would 
if  enjoying  perfect  liberty,  have  no  withering  effect  upon  their 
future  in  Australia.  Hence,  the  British  Government  is  com- 
pelled to  respect  them,  and  a  great  portion  of  that  respect  is  re- 
flected upon  the  island  of  their  origin.  The  Irish  at  home  now 
possess  influential  allies  in  their  own  countrymen  scattered  the 
wide  world  over,  but  chiefly  in  those  of  Australia.  The  time  is 
long  ago  past  when  they  had  to  look  for  allies  among  the  self- 
interested  nations  of  Europe.  They  no  longer  need  feed  their 
imagination  on  dreams  of  Spanish  aid  or  French  intervention  ; 
they  have  more  ardent,  disinterested,  and  powerful  friends  in 
their  own  countrymen  now  scattered  by  millions  over  foreign 
lands  ;  and  the  help  they  look  to  from  them  consists  not  in  fleets, 
munitions  of  war,  or  armed  troops.  The  dramas  of  Kinsale,  of 
Smerdick,  of  Aughrim,  and  Limerick,  will,  let  us  hope,  never  be 
acted  again.  The  hopes  of  to-day  are  of  another  character,  and 
infinitely  more  certain  and  sure  of  accomplishment.  Their  coun- 
trymen now  enjoy  high  positions  in  British  colonies,  and  in 
countries  which  once  were  British,  but  are  now  detached  from 
the  parent  stem  and  standing  high  among  the  nations  of  the 
world.  These  moral  alliances  carry  with  them  far  greater 
weight  and  are  much  more  efficacious  in  our  days  than  armies 
and  fleets  ;  for  the  influence  of  opinion  is  outweighing  more  and 
more  every  day  any  other  influence. 

Is  it  not  wonderful,  for  instance,  to  see  Mr.  Gavan  Duffy, 
once  of  the  Nation,  and  an  ex-rebel,  now,  or  recently,  premier 
in  the  Australian  cabinet  ? — the  right  direction  of  a  young  and 
growing  people  resting  in  the  hands  and  under  the  guidance  of 
a  mere  Irishman. 

Something  will  be  shortly  said  of  the  true  impulsion  to  be 
given  to  that  influence  in  order  to  complete  and  render  thorough 
the  resurrection  of  Ireland.  For  to  this  end  have  we  been 
marching  step  by  step  all  along,  and  are  on  the  point  at  last  of 
arriving  with  our  whole  array  of  considerations  marshalled  be- 
fore us,  that  the  last  step  may  be  rendered  telling  and  all-effi- 
cient. 


40S 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


It  is  only  since  the  discovery  of  the  gold-fields  in  1850,  that 
the  population  took  a  rapid  increase  and  the  importance  of  the 
Australian  colonies  became  at  once  evident.  Hence  every  thing 
there  is  still  of  yesterday,  and  documents  of  interest  are  yet 
wanting  on  many  subjects.  Details  as  convincing  in  character 
as  those  of  the  immigrant  labors  in  N orth  America  cannot  conse- 
quently be  furnished.  Nevertheless,  we  are  fain  to  believe  that 
many  things  happened  in  the  new  continent  with  respect  to 
Irishmen  which  would  also  display  the  designs  of  God  regardiug 
that  people.  One  circumstance  at  least,  drawn  from  the  history 
of  those  colonies,  seems  to  us  to  be  so  unmistakably  of  this  char- 
acter that  its  mention  may  be  a  pleasure. 

The  land  system  first  established  by  the  mother-country  dif- 
fered totally  from  that  adopted  in  the  United  States  and  Canada, 
and  would,  if  persisted  in,  have  hindered  the  Irish  immigrants 
from  acquiring  the  competency  requisite  to  enable  them  to  con- 
tribute adequately  toward  the  religious  and  charitable  establish- 
ments in  the  country.  Our  readers  will  remember  our  pointing 
out  the  striking  fact  that  it  was  in  the  United  States  alone  the 
'people  was  able  to  eifect  what  it  did  effect  in  this  matter.  The 
United  States  would  have  continued  to  this  day  in  the  undis- 
puted enjoyment  of  this  great  blessing,  had  the  original  policy 
sketched  out  by  England  tor  Australian  settlers  held  good  :  and 
the  marvel  of  its  not  still  holding  good  consists  in  the  fact  that 
the  vast  majority  of  Australian  colonists  themselves  willed  it  to 
continue. 

At  first  the  government  lands,  which  in  fact  included  the 
whole  country,  were  disposed  of  by  grants  from  the  crown. 
Then  an  Australian  land  company  was  incorporated  by  England, 
and  received  for  starting  its  operations  a  million  acres.  Several 
circumstances,  apparently  of  small  importance,  which  cannot 
here  be  detailed,  showed  a  tendency  in  fact  to  establish  a  landed 
aristocracy  in  Australia  from  the  outset.  The  system  advocated 
by  Edward  Gibbon  Wakefield  being  adopted  by  the  governor 
of  the  colony,  the  new  statesmen  strove  hard  to  dam  up  the 
stream  of  immigration  by  fictitious  land  prices,  and  by  the  concen- 
tration of  labor  for  the  special  interest  of  capitalists.  At  first 
they  were  completely  successful,  and  the  new  country  was  fashion- 
ing its  social  state  after  that  of  aristocratic  England.  This  was 
only  natural,  as  Australia  offered  a  magnificent  vent  for  those 
troublesome  younger  sons  of  aristocratic  families  who  have  been 
brought  up  to  pretensions  which  the  feudal  laws,  by  the  right  of 
primogeniture,  forbid  to  be  realized.  It  is  needless  to  add  that 
the  colonial  policy  of  Lord  Grey  smoothed  every  thing  for  the 
accomplishment  of  their  purpose. 

Worse  still,  the  capitalists  and  great  wool-growing  squatters 
of  Australia  thought  that  the  creation  of  a  class  of  independent 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


409 


settlers  would  be  prejudicial  to  their  interests.  It  heightened 
the  price  of  labor  which  they  were  so  anxious  to  keep  down. 
The  country  seemed  destined  more  and  more  to  become  a  second 
England  ;  and  land,  land,  the  blessed  land,  which,  according  to 
the  London  Times,  the  Saxon  loves  so  ardently,  was  to  become 
the  possession  of  the  few,  while  the  labor  of  the  many  would  be  as 
niggardly  rewarded  as  at  home.  There  was  indeed  great  danger 
that  the  liberal  policy  of  the  United  States  would  remain  with- 
out imitators,  and  North  America  still  continue  the  only  home 
of  the  poor  and  of  the  artisan. 

The  pet  policy  then  in  vogue  was  to  encourage  only  the 
immigration  of  mere  laborers,  who  could  not  well  rise  higher 
than  the  grade  of  "  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water."  The 
sheep-farming  capitalists  would  possess  immense  estates,  which 
they  could  improve  after  their  own  fashion,  receiving  from  Eu- 
rope a  full  supply  of  laborers,  fitted  by  their  former  life  for 
menial,  agricultural,  and  pastoral  occupations.  No  one  was  al- 
lowed to  buy  land  at  a  lower  price  than  one  pound  per  acre,  nor 
in  smaller  quantity  than  three  hundred  acres.  This  enactment 
in  itself  would  at  once  exclude  from  possession  of  land  nearly 
all  the  Irish  immigrants.  Such  was  the  enlightened  colonial  policy 
encouraged  by  British  statesmen  and  supported  by  the  majority 
of  the  early  Australian  settlers. 

We  are  not  acquainted  with  all  the  details  of  the  events 
which  brought  about  the  change  of  policy  in  1853,  and,  even 
were  we,  we  should  certainly  recognize  and  admire  in  them  the 
work  of  God  rather  than  of  man.  It  must  be  acknowledged, 
however,  that  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  who  succeeded  Lord  Grey, 
manifested  from  the  first  a  desire  of  introducing  a  complete 
reversal  of  policy  toward  the  new  continent.  The  control  of  the 
land  revenues  was  handed  over  to  the  colonists  themselves,  and 
consequently  withdrawn  from  the  "  Australian  Land  Company," 
a  free  constitution  with  legislative  houses  granted,  and  a  new  era 
opened  upon  the  country. 

By  this  happy  revolution,  Australia  placed  her  colonists  on 
almost  an  equal  footing  with  those  of  the  United  States,  and  it  is 
highly  probable  that  the  Duke  of  Newcastle's  object  was  solely  to 
prevent  the  emigration  of  the  Irish  to  America  only,  and 
induce  many  of  them  to  settle  in  the  English  colony.  If  this 
view  be  true,  then  does  the  United  States  possess  the  honor  of 
being,  under  God,  the  true  cause  of  the  change  of  policy  referred 
to,  which  enabled  Irishmen  to  do  in  Australia  what  they  had 
already  been  a  long  time  doing  in  America. 

The  two  great  streams  of  emigration  which  we  have  so  tar 
traced,  gave  rise  to  a  last  and  most  important  one,  namely,  the 
Irish  emigration  to  England. 

Had  they  followed  their  natural  inclinations,  few  indeed  of 


±70 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


them  -would  ever  have  thought  of  making  England  their  home. 
We  confess  to  our  surprise  on  first  learning  that  London  con- 
tained nearly  three  hundred  thousand  of  them,  and  that  all  the 
large  manufacturing  cities  of  Great  Britain  were  crowded  with 
them,  and  our  inability  to  scarcely  understand  how  they  could 
have  consented  to  rush  in  such  numbers  to  a  country  for  which 
the  poor  among  them  particularly  entertain  such  an  instinctive 
repugnance.  That  a  few  might  be  driven  to  it  by  absolute 
starvation  and  the  lack  of  means  to  go  farther,  was  easy  to 
imagine ;  but  that  such  vast  numbers  of  them  could  take  that 
direction,  remained  a  mystery  to  us  until  we  began  to  study  the 
details  of  this  process  furnished  by  Mr.  Henry  Mayhew,  in  his 
"  London  Labor  and  London  Poor." 

"  It  was,"  he  tells  us,  "  into  Liverpool  that  the  tide  of  immi- 
gration flowed  the  strongest,  in  the  calamitous  year  of  the  famine 
— 1S17-4S.  <  Between  the  13th  of  January  and  the  13th  of 
December,  both  inclusive,'  writes  Mr.  Rushton,  the  Liverpool 
magistrate,  to  Sir  George  Grey,  'two  hundred  and  ninety-six 
thousand  two  hundred  and  thirty-one  persons  landed  in  this 

Eort '  (Liverpool) £  from  Ireland.  Of  this  vast  number,  about  one 
undred  and  thirty  thousand  emigrated  to  the  United  States ; 
some  fifty  thousand  were  passengers  on  business ;  and  the  re- 
mainder— over  one  hundred  and  sixty-one  thousand — were  pau- 
pers, half  naked  and  starving,  landed,  for  the  most  part,  during 
the  winter,  and  became,  immediately  on  landing,  applicants  for 
parochial  relief.  You  already  know  the  immediate  result  of  this 
accumulation  of  misery  in  the  crowded  town  of  Liverpool ;  of 
the  cost  of  relief  at  once  rendered  necessary  to  prevent  the 
thousands  of  hungry  and  naked  Irish  from  perishing  in  our 
streets ;  and  also  of  the  cost  of  the  pestilence  which  ordinarily 
follows  in  the  train  of  famine  and  misery,  such  as  we  then  had  to 
encounter.  .  .  .  Hundreds  of  patients  perished,  notwithstanding 
all  efforts  made  to  save  them,  and  ten  Roman  Catholic  and  one 
Protestant  clergymen,  many  parochial  officers,  and  many  medical 
men,  who  devoted  themselves  to  the  task  of  alleviating  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  wretched,  died  in  the  discharge  of  this  high  duty.' 

"  Great  numbers  of  these  people  were,  at  the  same  time,  also 
conveyed  from  Ireland  to  Wales,  especially  to  Newport.  They 
were  brought  over  by  coal-vessels,  as  a  return-cargo — a  living- 
ballast — two  shillings  and  sixpence  being  the  highest  fare,  and 
were  huddled  together  like  pigs.  The  manager  of  the  Newport 
1  tramp-house '  has  stated  concerning  these  people  :  4  They  don't 
live  long,  diseased  as  they  are.  They  are  very  remarkable :  they 
will  eat  salt  by  basins  fall,  and  drink  a  great  quantity  of  water 
after.' 

u  Many,  there  is  no  doubt,  tramped  their  way  to  London, 
sleeping  at  the  casual  wards  of  the  unions  on  their  wav. 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


471 


"  Of  the  immigration  direct,  by  the  vessels  trading  from  Ire- 
land to  London,  there  are  no  returns,  such  as  have  been  collected 
by  Mr,  Rushton  for  Liverpool ;  but  the  influx  is  comparatively 
small,  on  account  of  the  greater  length  and  cost  of  the  voyage. 
During  the  year  1863,  I  am  informed  that  fifteen  or  sixteen 
thousand  passengers  were  brought  from  Ireland  to  London 
direct,  and  in  addition  to  these,  five  hundred  more  were  brought 
over  from  Cork,  in  connection  with  the  arrangements  for  emi- 
gration  to  the  United  States,  and  consigned  to  the  emigration 
agent  here." 

Another  proof  that  all  human  calculations  are  likely  to  be 
falsified  with  respect  to  such  enormous  calamities  as  that  which 
then  overwhelmed  the  Irish  people.  Their  only  thought  was  to 
fly — no  matter  where,  no  matter  how  they  would  be  received 
and  treated,  or  how  their  condition  might  be  bettered.  As 
Wales  and  Lancashire  were  the  nearest  places  to  them  out  of 
their  own  country,  thither  they  were  carried  by  hundreds  of 
thousands  and  cast  upon  the  shore. 

"What  became  of  the  survivors,  and  what  part  are  they  now 
playing  on  that  great  theatre — England  ?  The  same  answer 
comes  back  to  us  :  there  also  they  are  a  missionary  people  ;  they 
are,  in  fact,  converting  England,  and  likewise  aiding  in  and  pre- 
paring for  the  resurrection  of  their  own  country. 

Many,  we  know,  have  taken  a  different  view  of  their  work 
in  that  busy  hive  of  English  industry  amid  the  scramble  for  the 
goods  of  this  life  ;  but,  fortunately,  there  are  other  competent 
and  disinterested  witnesses,  whose  testimony  is  as  valuable  as  it 
is  unexceptional,  from  whom  we  select  Mr.  Henry  Mayhew,  an 
Englishman,  a  non-Catholic,  a  cool-headed  statistician,  as  his 
book  shows,  but  gifted  with  a  heart  that  moved  him  from  the 
beginning  to  tell  the  plain  truth,  and  the  truth  contained  in  his 
book  is  almost  one  long-continued  praise  of  the  character  of  the 
lowest  among  the  Irish.  And  it  may  be  remembered,  as  evi- 
dence of  his  trustworthiness,  that  truth  of  this  character  was 
particularly  unpalatable  to  the  English  stomach,  and  calculated, 
from  a  mercantile  point  ot  view,  to  injure  rather  than  favor  the 
sale  of  his  book. 

The  praise  results  chiefly  from  the  contrast  between  the 
English  and  Irish  poor.  Eor,  when  the  author  speaks  of  the 
London  poor,  they  are  mainly  English.  They  are  the  chief 
subject  of  his  theme,  and  whenever  in  his  rambles  among  them 
he  comes  across  the  Irish,  who  are  lost  in  the  midst  of  that  fright- 
ful moral  wretchedness,  his  testimony  is  always  loud,  sincere, 
and  unmistakably  expressed. 

His  first  investigations  were  among  the  costermongers,  of 
whom  there  are  thirty  thousand  in  London,  one-third  of  them 
being  Irish.    The  two  classes  often  live  together ;  but  there 


472 


THE  "EXODUS"  ASTD  ITS  EFFECTS. 


is  a  wide  moral  bridge  dividing  them.    The  following  will  show 

the  main  results  of  his  observations  : 
I.  As  regards  religion. 

"  An  intelligent  and  trustworthy  man,  until  very  recently 
actively  engaged  in  costermongering,  computed  that  not  three  in 
one  hundred  English  costermongers  had  ever  been  in  the  interior 
of  a  church,  or  of  any  place  of  worship,  or  knew  what  was 
meant  by  Christianity.  The  same  person  gave  me  the  following 
account,  which  was  confirmed  by  others  : 

"  '  The  costers  have  no  religion  at  all,  and  very  little  notion, 
or  none  at  all,  of  what  religion  or  a  future  state  is.  But  I  am 
satisfied  that,  if  the  costers  had  to  profess  themselves  of  some 
religion  to-morrow,  they  would  all  become  Roman  Catholics, 
every  one  of  them.  This  is  the  reason  :  London  costers  live  very 
often  in  the  same  courts  and  streets  as  the  poor  Irish,  and  if  the 
Irish  are  sick^  be  sure  there  come  to  them  the  priest,  the  Sisters 
of  Charity — they  are  good  women — and  some  other  ladies. 
Many  a  man  that  is  not  a  Catholic  has  rotted  and  died  without 
any  good  person  near  him.  ...  It  is  still  the  stranger  that  the 
regular  costermongers,  who  are  nearly  all  Londoners,  should 
have  such  respect  for  the  Roman  Catholics,  when  they  have  such 
a  hatred  of  the  Irish,  whom  they  look  upon  as  intruders  and 
underminers.' " 

Is  not  this  statement  enough  in  itself  to  show  that  the 
very  presence  of  the  Irish  in  their  midst  is  already  working 
the  slow  conversion  of  the  Londoners  ?  Now,  for  a  word  of 
Mr.  Mayhew's  on  the  religion  of  the  Irish  costermongers. 
It  may  be  superfluous,  but  the  contrast  cannot  fail  to  make  it 
interesting  : 

"  Almost  all  the  street  Irish  are  Roman  Catholics.  During 
my  inquiries  I  met  with  only  two  who  said  they  were  Prot- 
estants, and,  when  I  came  to  converse  with  them,  I  found  out 
that  they  were  partly  ignorant  of,  and  partly  indifferent  to,  any 
religion  whatever. 

"  I  found  that  some  of  the  Irish  Roman  Catholics — but  they 
had  been  for  many  years  resident  in  England,  and  that  among 
the  poorest  classes  of  the  English — had  become  indifferent  to 
their  creed,  and  did  not  attend  their  chapels,  unless  at  the  great 
feasts  and  festivals.  One  old  stall-keeper,  who  had  been  in 
London  nearly  thirty  years,  said  to  me  :  '  Ah,  God  knows,  sir, 
I  ought  to  attend  mass  every  Sunday,  but  I  have  not  for  many  a 
year,  barrin'  Christmas-day  and  such  times.  But  I  will  thry  and 
go  more  regular,  plase  God.'  This  man  seemed  to  resent  as  a 
sort  of  indignity  my  question  if  he  had  ever  attended  any  other 
place  of  worship  :  £  Af  coorse  not ! '  was  the  reply."  Mr.  May- 
new  fell  into  a  verbal  mistake  when  he  said  that  this  man  was 
indifferent  to  his  religion. 


THE  "EXODUS"  AKD  ITS  EFFECTS.  473 

We  cannot  afford  to  transfer  any  more  of  his  experiences 
among  the  Irish.  From  all  his  accounts,  they  are  the  same  in 
London  as  everywhere  else,  most  firmly  attached  to  Catholicity, 
and,  as  a  general  rule,  most  exemplary  in  the  performance  of 
their  religious  obligations. 

It  is  fitting,  however,  to  give  the  conclusion  of  a  long  de- 
scription of  what  he  saw  among  them  while  visiting  them  in 
the  company  of  a  clergyman  :  "  The  religious  fervor  of  the 
people  whom  I  saw  was  intense.  At  one  house  that  I  entered, 
the  woman  set  me  marvelling  at  the  strength  of  her  zeal,  by 
showing  me  how  she  continued  to  have  in  her  sitting-room  a 
sanctuary  to  pray  every  night  and  morning,  and  even  during 
the  day  when  she  felt  weary  and  lonesome." 

II.  Passing  from  religion  to  morality,  let  us  look  at  this 
writer  again :  u  Only  one-tenth,  at  the  outside,  of  the  couples 
living  together  and  carrying  on  the  costermongering  trade 
(among  the  English)  are  married.  ...  Of  the  rights  of  legiti- 
mate or  illegitimate  children,  the  English  costermongers  under- 
stand nothing,  and  account  it  a  mere  waste  of  money  to  go 
through  the  ceremony  of  wedlock,  when  a  pair  can  live  together, 
and  be  quite  as  well  regarded  by  their  fellows  without  it.  The 
married  women  associate  wTith  the  unmarried  mothers  of  fami- 
lies without  scruple.  There  is  no  honor  attached  to  the  married 
state  and  no  shame  to  concubinage. 

"  As  regards  the  fidelity  of  these  women,  I  was  assured  that 
in  any  thing  like  good  times  they  were  rigidly  faithful  to  their 
paramours  ;  but  that,  in  the  worst  pinch  of  poverty,  a  departure 
from  this  fidelity — if  it  provided  a  few  meals  or  a  fire — was  not 
considered  at  all  heinous." 

Further  details. may  be  read  in  the  book  quoted  from,  which 
would  scarcely  come  well  in  these  pages,  though  quite  appro- 
priate to  the  most  interesting  work  in  which  they  appear.  From 
the  whole,  it  is  only  too  clear  that  the  class  of  people  referred  to 
is  profoundly  immoral  and  corrupt,  their  very  poverty  only 
hindering  them  from  indulging  in  an  excess  of  libertinism. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  Mr.  Mayhew  speaks  of  the  street 
Irish  in  London,  he  is  most  emphatic  in  his  praise  of  the  purity 
of  the  women  in  particular,  and  the  care  of  the  parents  in 
general  to  preserve  the  virtue  of  their  daughters,  in  the  midst 
of  the  frightful  corruption  ever  under  their  eyes.  The  only 
remark  he  passes  of  a  disparaging  character  is  the  following  : 

"  I  may  here  observe  " — referring  to  the  statement  that  Irish 
parents  will  not  expose  their  daughters  to  the  risk  of  what  they 
consider  corrupt  influences — "  that,  when  a  young  Irish  woman 
does  break  through  the  pale  of  chastity,  she  often  becomes,  as  I 
was  assured,  one  of  the  most  violent  and  depraved  of,  perhaps, 
the  most  depraved  class." 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


It  is  evident,  from  the  mere  form  in  which  this  phrase  is  put, 
that  such  a  thing  is  of  very  rare  occurrence,  and  that  the  vio- 
lence and  depravity  spoken  of  offer  all  the  stronger  contrast 
to  the  general  purity  of  the  whole  class,  and  are  merely  the  result 
of  the  open  and  unreserved  character  of  the  race. 

But  the  whole  world  knows  that  chastity  is  the  rule,  and 
perhaps  the  most  special  virtue  of  the  Irish,  a  fact  which  their 
worst  enemies  have  been  compelled  to  confess.  In  this  same 
work  of  Mr.  Mayhew's  a  still  more  surprising  fact  than  the 
last — for  that  is  acknowledged  by  all — is  brought  into  astonish- 
ing prominence  ;  a  fact  opposed  to  the  general  opinion  of  their 
friends  even,  and  yet  supported  by  incontrovertible  evidence. 
It  relates  to  another  contrast  between  the  English  and  Irish 
costermongers  on  the  score  of  temperance. 

III.  The  result  arrived  at  by  his  inquiries  among  liquor- 
dealers  in  that  part  of  London  inhabited  by  about  equal  num- 
bers of  both  nationalities,  Mr.  Mayhew  gives  us  as  twenty  to  one 
in  favor  of  the  Irish  with  respect  to  the  consumption  of  liquor. 
In  most  "  independent,"  that  is  to  say,  "  not  impoverished " 
Irish  families,  water  is  the  only  beverage  at  dinner,  with  punch 
afterward  ;  and  estimating  the  number  of  teetotallers,  among 
the  English  at  three  hundred,  there  are  six  hundred  among  the 
Irish,  who  constitute,  it  may  be  remembered,  only  one-third  of 
the  whole  costermonger  class,  and  those  Irish  teetotallers,  having 
taken  the  pledge  under  the  sanction  of  their  priests,  look  upon 
it  as  a  religious  observance  and  keep  it  rigidly.  The  number  of 
Irish  teetotallers  has  been  considerably  increased  since  Mr.  May- 
hew  made  his  returns,  in  consequence  of  the  energetic  crusade  en- 
tered upon  against  drink  by  the  zealous  London  clergy,  under 
the  powerful  lead  of  Archbishop  Manning. 

It  is  true  that  an  innkeeper  told  Mr.  Mayhew  that  "  he  would 
rather  have  twenty  poor  Englishmen  drunk  in  his  tap-room  than 
a  couple  of  poor  Irishmen,  who  will  quarrel  with  anybody,  and 
sometimes  clear  the  room."  But  this  remark,  if  it  shows  any 
thing:,  shows  only  how  and  why  the  Irish  have  obtained  that 
reputation  of  being  a  nation  of  drunkards,  which  is  slanderous 
and  false. 

TV.  Yet  another,  and  perhaps  as  surprising  a  result  as  any, 
is  the  contrast  between  both  classes  of  people  with  respect  to 
economy  and  foresight.  The  English  street-sellers  are  found 
everywhere  spending  all  their  income  in  the  satisfaction  often  of 
brutish  appetites ;  the  Irish,  on  the  contrary,  save  their  money, 
either  for  the  purpose  of  transmitting  it  to  their  poor  relatives  in 
Ireland,  or  bringing  up  their  children  properly,  or — if  they  are 
young — to  provide  for  their  marriage-expenses  and  home.  Such 
cares  as  these  never  seem  to  afflict  the  English  costermonger. 
So  strongly  did  Mr.  Mayhew  find  these  characteristics  marked 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


475 


among  the  Irish,  that  he  is  at  times  inclined  to  accuse  them  of 
carrying  them  too  far,  even  to  the  display  of  a  sordid  and  parsi- 
monious spirit.  According  to  him,  they  apply  to  the  various 
"unions,"  or  to  the  parish,  even  when  they  have  money,  or 
sometimes  go  with  wretched  food,  dwelling,  or  clothing,  in  order 
to  have  a  small  fund  laid  by,  in  case  of  any  emergency  arising. 

But  the  general  result  of  his  observations  is  clear :  that  the 
Irish  are  most  provident  and  far-seeing ;  a  surprising  statement, 
doubtless,  to  the  generality  of  Mr.  Mayhew's  readers,  but  one 
which,  after  all,  only  accords  with  the  testimony  of  many  unex- 
ceptionable witnesses  of  their  life  in  other  countries.  And,  if  in 
England,  in  London  especially,  they  at  times  appear  sordid  in 
their  economy,  is  not  this  the  very  natural  result  of  the  misery 
they  had  previously  endured  in  their  own  impoverished  land, 
and  therefore  a  proof  that,  at  least,  they  have  profited  by  the 
terrible  ordeals  through  which  they  were  compelled  to  pass '? 

We  have  spoken  only  of  the  Irish  in  London ;  the  same  facts 
are  most  probably  true  of  them  in  all  the  large  cities  of  Great 
Britain.  Unfortunately,  Mr.  Mayhew's  most  interesting  work 
has  found  no  imitators  in  other  parts  of  the  kingdom.  F.  Per- 
raud's  remarks,  however,  in  his  "  Ireland  under  English  Rule," 
extend  almost  over  the  whole  country. 

After  giving  his  own  experience,  and  that  of  many  others 
whom  he  had  consulted,  or  whose  works  he  had  read ;  after  hav- 
ing set  forth  the  dangers  which  beset  the  Irish  in  that  (to  them) 
"most  foreign  country" — England — and  also  the  success  which 
had  attended  the  labors  of  many  proselytizing  agents  among' 
them,  and  even  in  some  cases  the  progress  of  immorality  in  their 
midst  resulting  from  the  innumerable  seductions  to  which  they 
were  exposed,  a  success  and  a  progress  which  Mr.  Mayhew's  per- 
sonal observation  would  lead  us  to  think  the  good  father  has  ex- 
aggerated, he  concludes  as  follows  : 

"  We  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  the  Irish  emigration  to 
England  and  Scotland  produces  in  many  individual  cases  results 
which  cannot  be  too  deeply  deplored. 

"  But  there,  also,  as  well  as  in  America  and  Australia,  through 
the  economy  of  an  admirable  providence,  God  makes  use  of  those 
Irish  immigrants  for  the  propagation  and  extension  of  the  Cath- 
olic faith  in  the  midst  of  English  and  Scotch  Protestantism.  What 
progress  has  not  the  Catholic  religion  made  within  the  last  thirty 
years  in  England  ?  And  might  not  the  Catholics  say  to  their  sepa- 
rated brethren  what  Tertullian  said  to  the  Coesars  of  the  third 
century  :  6  Our  religion  is  but  of  yesterday ;  and  behold,  we  fill 
your  towns,  your  councils,  your  camps,  your  tribes,  your  decumas, 
the  palace,  the  senate,  the  forum.  .  .  .  You  have  persecuted  us 
during  centuries,  and  behold,  we  spring  up  afresh  from  the  blood 
of  martyrs ! ' 


THE  "EXODUS "  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


"  At  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  George  III.,  England  and 
Scotland  scarcely  contained  sixty  thousand  Catholics  who  had  re- 
mained true  to  the  faith  of  their  fathers.  Their  number  in  1821 
was,  according  to  the  official  census,  five  hundred  thousand.  In 
1842,  they  were  estimated  at  from  two  million  to  two  million 
five  hundred  thousand.  At  present  (1864)  they  number  nearly 
four  million,  and  of  this  total  amount  the  single  city  of  London 
figures  for  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand." 

In  a  note  he  adds  the  following  figures,  furnished  him  by 
Dr.  Grant,  the  late  Bishop  of  South  wark : 

Total  No.  of  Catholics.    No.  of  Irish. 

Manchester      ....    80,000  .       .  60,000 

Liverpool     ....      130,000  .  85,000 

Birmingham     ....    30,000  .       .  20,000 

Preston       ....        24,000  .  4,300 

Wigan                                     18,000  .       .  16,000 

Bolton        ....        12,000  .  4,000 

St.  Helen's  (Lancashire)   .       .    10,000  .       .  6,000 

Edinburgh  ....        50,000  .  35,000 

Glasgow          ....  127,000  .       .  90,000 

"  Finally,  we  must  not  forget  that  about  one-half  the  army 
and  navy  is  composed  of  Irish  Catholics. 

"  In  1792  England  and  Wales  counted  no  more  than  thirty- 
five  chapels ;  in  1S40  the  number  amounted  to  five  hundred, 
among  which  were  vast  and  splendid  churches,  such  as  St. 
George's,  South  wark,  and  the  Birmingham  Cathedral.  At  pres- 
ent (1864)  the  number  is  nearly  one  thousand. 

"  In  connection  with  the  movement  of  individual  conversions, 
which  yearly  brings  within  our  ranks  from  those  of  Protestant- 
ism the  most  upright,  the  sincerest,  the  best-disposed  souls,  the 
Irish  immigration  in  England  is  then  destined  to  play  an  impor- 
tant part  in  the  so  desirable  return  of  that  great  island  to  the 
faith  which  she  received  in  the  sixth  century  from  St.  Gregory 
the  Great  and  St.  Austin  of  Canterbury,"  and,  let  us  add,  from 
Aidan  and  his  Irish  monks  of  Lindisfarne  and  Iona,  as  Monta- 
lembert  has  shown. 

If  we  examine  closely  the  figures  just  furnished  by  F.  Per- 
raud,  and  consider  that  the  number  of  Catholics  in  Great  Brit- 
ain was  only  five  hundred  thousand  in  1821,  which,  following  his 
calculation,  mounted  to  four  million  in  1864,  if  we  look  closely 
into  the  gradations  of  the  increase  marked  in  the  various  censuses 
taken  between  those  dates,  we  shall  find  that  the  Irish  immigra- 
tion has  indeed  played  a  most  important  part  in  the  return  of 
England  toward  Catholicity.  "We  are  surprised  to  find  that  he 
Beems  to  estimate  the  number  of  Irish  in  England  at  only  one 
million  ;  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  and  their  offspring 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


477 


compose  the  majority  of  Catholics  there,  and  that  many  of  the 
Englishmen  who  come  back  to  the  true  faith  are  induced  by 
their  example  and  influence,  particularly  among  the  lower  or- 
ders, and  that  the  real  work  of  the  conversion  of  the  English  na- 
tion rests  in  the  hands  of  the  Irish  immigrants.  Mr.  Mayhew 
has  informed  us  of  the  disposition  of  the  English  costermongers 
on  religious  matters. 

We  have  now  examined  the  three  great  waves  which  bore 
the  Irish  to  foreign  countries  ;  the  lesser  streamlets,  which  wan- 
dered away  into  other  English  colonies,  may  be  dismissed,  as  to 
trace  and  follow  up  their  course  would  involve  more  time  and 
trouble  than  they  really  call  for.  We  now  see  the  Irish  race  dis- 
seminated in  large  groups  over  many  and  vast  territories  ;  and, 
although  the  home  population  has  been  considerably  diminished 
by  that  great  exodus,  and  is  now  reduced  to  about  five  millions, 
nevertheless,  to  count  them  as  they  are  dispersed  throughout  the 
world,  their  number  is  far  higher  than  it  has  ever  been  before  ; 
and  we  now  proceed  to  offer  some  considerations  tending  to 
show  the  effects  of  that  vast  emigration  on  the  resurrection  ot  the 
race,  and  on  the  future  progress  of  the  country  from  which  the 
race  comes. 

First,  then,  emigration  has  given  Ireland  and  Irishmen  an 
importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  which  they  and  it  would 
never  have  acquired  unless  that  emigration  had  taken  place  ;  so 
that  England,  on  whom  in  a  great  measure  their  future  fate  de- 
pends, is  now  compelled  to  respect  and  render  them  justice ;  and 
justice  is  all  that  is  wanting  to  bring  about  their  complete  resur- 
rection. 

In  order  to  form  a  true  idea  on  this  point,  it  is  necessary  to 
consider  them  in  their  twofold  aspect,  as  emigrants  to  the 
United  States,  residing  under  and  citizens  of  a  government  dis- 
tinct from  that  of  England;  and,  secondly,  in  countries  which 
are  under  the  control  ot  Great  Britain,  one  of  these  being  Eng- 
land itself. 

In  the  Union  they  become  for  the  greater  part  citizens  of  the 
country  which  they  have  made  their  home,  and  the  first  condi- 
tion necessary  for  the  obtaining  of  this  right  of  citizenship  is  the 
renunciation  of  all  allegiance  to  their  former  English  rulers.  The 
readiness  and  joy  even  with  which  they  perform  this  task  need 
no  mention.  But,  as  Christians,  the  new  obligations  under 
which  they  bind  themselves  involve  something  more  than  the 
mere  oath  of  allegiance  ;  the  spirit  no  less  than  the  letter  of  the 
oath  prescribes  that  they  acknowledge  no  other  country  as  theirs 
than  that  which  offered  them  a  refuge,  and  consequently,  by  the 
very  fact  of  becoming  American  citizens,  they  cease  to  be  Irish- 
men. 

But  their  oath  does  not  bind  them  to  forget  their  former 


473 


THE  "EXODUS"  AXD  ITS  EFFECTS. 


country,  as  little  as  it  forbids  them  to  benefit  it  as  far  as  lawfully 
lies  in  their  power.  Far  otherwise.  Their  new  allegiance  would 
indeed  be  a  poor  thing  if,  in  its  very  conception,  it  could  only  bind 
hearts  so  cold  as  to  renounce  at  once  all  affection  for  the  land  of 
their  birth,  and  banish  in  a  day  memories  that  the  day  before 
were  sacred.  This  is  not  required  of  them ;  and,  were  it,  they 
could  never  so  understand  their  allegiance.  They  remain,  and 
justly,  firmly  attached  to  Ireland,  and  look  anxiously  for  any 
lawful  occasion  on  which  they  may  manifest  their  affection  by 
their  acts. 

Meanwhile,  in  their  new  country,  position,  influence,  wealth, 
consideration,  often  fall  to  their  lot ;  their  numbers  swell,  and 
they  become  an  important  factor  in  the  republic.  Something 
of  the  power  wielded  by  the  great  nation  of  which  they  are  now 
citizens  attaches  to  them,  and  shows  them  to  the  astonished  gaze 
of  England  under  a  totally  new  and  unexpected  aspect.  In  war, 
the  effect  is  most  telling,  and,  even  so  far  back  as  1812,  the  part 
played  by  "  saucy  Jack  "  Barry,  for  instance,  already  gave  rise  to 
very  grave  considerations  and  forebodings  on  the  part  of  British 
statesmen.  But,  even  in  time  of  peace,  the  high  position  held 
by  many  Irishmen  in  the  United  States,  and  the  aggregate  voice 
of  a  powerful  party,  where  every  tongue  has  a  vote,  cannot  fail 
to  tell  advantageously  on  questions  referring  to  their  former 
country. 

Can  it  be  imagined  that  this  exercises  no  influence  on  the 
treatment  of  Ireland  by  the  ruling  power?  To  afford  a  true 
conception  of  the  alteration  brought  about  by  Irish  emigration, 
suppose  for  an  instant  the  ruling  power  using  again  its  old  reck- 
lessness in  abusing  Ireland — not  that  we  imagine  the  English 
statesmen  of  to-day  capable  of  such  a  thing  and  anxious  to  restore 
what,  happily,  has  passed  away  forever — but  merely  to  show  the 
utter  impossibility  of  such  a  contingency  again  arising,  suppose 
one  of  the  old  penal  laws  to  be  again  enacted  and  sanctioned  by 
a  British  sovereign,  what  would  the  effect  be  on  the  multitude 
of  Irishmen  now  living  in  America  ?  What,  independently  of 
the  Irish,  would  be  the  effect  on  all  the  organs,  worthy  of  the 
name,  of  public  opinion  in  America  ?  How  would  the  great 
majority  of  the  members,  not  of  Congress  only,  but  of  the  Legis- 
lature of  each  State,  speak  8  Public  opinion  is  now  the  ruler  of 
the  world,  and  when  public  opinion  declares  against  a  flagrant 
and  crying  injustice,  its  voice  must  be  heard,  its  mandate  obeyed, 
and  lawlessness  cease.  This  extreme  and,  as  we  believe,  impos- 
sible example,  is  merely  adduced  as  a  proof  of  the  advantage 
which  Ireland  has  reaped  from  the  dispersion  of  her  scattered 
children — an  advantage  falling  back  on  her  own  head,  in  return, 
perhaps,  for  the  mission  they  are  working. 

But,  over  and  above  the  supposition  of  such  an  extreme  case, 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


479 


there  is  surely  a  silent  power  in  the  mere  standing  of  millions  of 
free  men  who  would  resent,  as  done  to  themselves,  a  recurrence 
of  an  attack  on  their  old  country.  And  there  are,  beyond  ques- 
tion, three  millions  of  former  Irishmen,  citizens  to-day  of  the 
United  States,  on  whom  the  glance  of  many  an  English  states- 
man, with  any  just  pretension  to  the  name,  must  fall.  Therefore 
do  we  say  that  now  England  must  respect  Ireland. 

That  respect  is  daily  heightened  by  the  greater  comfort  and 
easier  circumstances,  though  still  far  too  wretched  on  the  whole, 
of  the  Irish  at  home,  which  have  been  mainly  brought  about  by 
the  help  received  from  their  exiled  countrymen.  As  was  seen, 
the  old  policy  of  their  oppressors  had  for  chief  object  the  pauper- 
ization of  the  country,  and,  as  was  also  seen,  that  policy  was 
eminently  successful.  We  know  how  deeply  the  effects  of  that 
former  policy  are  still  felt,  and  how  far  from  completion  still  is 
justice  in  that  regard  ;  how  they  still  complain,  and  with  only 
too  much  reason,  of  many  laws  which  are  as  so  many  gyves  still 
binding  them  down  in  their  old  degradation ;  but,  of  this,  the 
following  chapter  will  speak. 

Yet,  it  is  undeniable  that  their  situation  is  considerably  im- 
proved, and  that  the  excessive  sufferings  which  formerly  seemed 
their  privilege,  are  scarcely  possible  in  our  days.  This  change 
in  their  circumstances  for  the  better  may  be  ascribed  to  a  variety 
of  causes,  one  of  which,  we  acknowledge,  has  been  the  repairing 
of  many  previous  injustices.  But  we  must  acknowledge  also 
that  the  main  lever  in  a  nation's  resurrection,  once  the  ground 
is  cleared  round  about — her  treasury — has,  as  far  as  Ireland  is 
concerned,  been  chiefly  replenished  from  abroad.  Absentee  land- 
lords still  drain  the  country ;  but  the  money  which  has  gone 
into  it  has  been  certainly  owing  greatly  to  the  immense  sums 
transmitted  yearly  from  America  by  the  exiles,  all  of  which  has 
certainly  not  returned  to  the  place  from  which  it  went  out.  It 
is  impossible  to  estimate  the  amount  which  was  kept  in  Ireland 
and  that  which  floated  back,  but  the  balance  must  be  consider- 
ably on  the  side  of  what  remained,  as  the  distress  at  home  was 
so  great,  and  in  millions  of  instances  immediate  relief  came  from 
the  distant  friends  who  had  acquired  a  competency  in  their  new 
country,  and,  knowing  the  dire  distress  of  their  relatives  at  home, 
sent  generally  what  they  could  spare,  by  the  speediest  means  at 
their  command. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  thousands  of  families  have  thus  been 
benefited  by  that  first  sad  emigration  of  their  friends,  and  that 
the  visible  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  Irish  at  home 
is  in  a  great  measure  due  to  it.  We  hear,  moreover,  that  the 
working  of  the  new  "  Encumbered  Estates  Court  "  has  already 
placed  in  the  hands  of  native  Irishmen  many  parcels  of  the 
lands  of  their  fathers,  and  probably  many  of  the  ample  estates 


4S0 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


belonging  to  what  was  the  Irish  Church  Establishment,  which 
are  to  be  sold,  will  find  their  way  back  in  the  same  manner. 

The  Irish  are  thus  being  slowly  reinstated  in  possession  of 
their  own  soil,  and,  that  once  accomplished,  the  respect  of  Eng- 
land is  secured — respectability  in  England  being  in  its  essence 
equivalent  to  real  estate. 

Thus  is  the  uprising  of  the  nation  being  gradually,  silently, 
but  surely  brought  about  by  the  emigration  to  the  United  States ; 
and  this  effect  is  considerably  heightened  when  the  emigration 
to  countries  under  English  control  is  taken  into  consideration — 
Canada,  Australia,  England  itself. 

In  those  places  the  same  results  followed  which  we  have 
just  witnessed  in  the  United  States,  but  another  and  far  greater 
result  remains  for  them.  Xot  only  did  they  slowly  aid  in 
awakening  the  respect  for  their  countrymen  at  home  in  the 
English  breast  by  their  own  rising  importance  and  improved 
condition,  but  in  Canada  and  Australia  they  possess  a  privilege 
which,  in  the  British  Isles,  is  theirs  only  in  theory,  but  abroad 
becomes  a  very  powerful  fact. 

Ever  since  the  Union  of  1800,  the  Irish  are  supposed  to  form 
a  part  and  parcel  of  the  empire  at  home,  and  to  have  fair  repre- 
sentation of  their  native  conn  try  in  the  members  they  return  to 
the  Imperial  Parliament.  But  it  is  well  known  that  the  Irish 
influence  in  that  Parliament  is  almost  null,  and  that  their 
presence  there  frequently  is  productive  of  no  other  result  than 
to  countenance  laws  injurious  to  their  own  country.  Does,  can 
Ireland  hope  to  derive  any  political  or  social  benefit  from  her 
representatives  in  London  beyond  whatever  may  accrue  to  her 
from  their  vain  remonstrances  and  ineffective  speeches  ?  But  in 
the  eoloDial  Parliaments  the  case  is  very  different. 

It  is  not  our  desire  to  be  understood  as  saving  that  Irishmen, 
by  meddling  with  politics,  can  effect  a  certain  improvement  in 
their  condition  and  that  of  their  country,  beyond  giving  tokens 
of  the  life  which  is  in  them.  We  believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  too 
great  an  eagerness  in  such  pursuits  has  injured  them  on  many 
occasions ;  and  they  ought  to  beware  of  nattering  themselves 
that  they  are  rising,  because  their  votes  are  clamored  for,  and 
they  themselves  exhorted  to  enter  into  the  contest  as  fierce  par- 
tisans. This,  too  often,  leads  them  into  making  themselves  the 
mere  tools  of  shrewd  men. 

But,  in  the  colonies,  they  muster  in  considerable  force,  and, 
with  prudence  and  sagacity,  may  have  their  desires  and  measures 
fairly  considered  and  conceded ;  for,  unfortunately,  the  style  of 
measures  fair  and  favorable  to  them  as  Irishmen  and  Catholics, 
is  completely  at  variance  with  that  of  those  opposed  to  them, 
whom,  go  where  they  will,  they  encounter,  and  always  in  the 
same  form.    In  Ireland,  they  are  at  liberty,  apparently,  to  do  the 


THE  "EXODUS "  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


431 


same  by  reason  of  their  superiority  in  point  of  numbers ;  the 
result  of  the  late  Galway  elections  proves  what  a  farce  is  this 
show  of  liberty,  and  even  the  members  whom  they  would  and  do 
sometimes  elect  possess  a  very  feeble  influence,  or  none,  in  what 
is  called  the  Imperial  Parliament.  But,  in  the  colonies,  if  they, 
as  electors,  outnumber  their  political  opponents,  they  can  and 
must  return  the  majority  to  the  House  of  Representatives  and  of 
officers  to  the  various  departments  of  the  colonial  administration. 
Such  is  the  law  of  election  in  really  representative  governments 
which  are  truly  free ;  the  majority  of  electors  returns  the  major- 
ity to  the  government ;  and  rightly  so.  Of  course,  there  is 
room  here,  particularly  where  the  majority  happens  to  be  Irish, 
for  a  vast  quantity  of  frothy  bluster  about  drilled  and  intimidated 
voters,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  With  that  we  have  no  con- 
cern at  present,  and  merely  remark  en  passant  that  it  is  a  pity  a 
little  more  of  it  was  not  wasted  on  the  recent  Galway  elections, 
already  alluded  to,  on  both  sides ;  and  for  the  rest,  that  the  world 
has  not  yet  been  apprised  of  Irish  majorities  in  the  Australian 
Parliament  abusing  their  power  by  either  accidental  or  system- 
atic misrule ;  and  it  may,  therefore,  be  safely  conceded  that,  on 
the  whole,  the  government  has  rested  in  safe  hands.  However, 
what  concerns  us  at  present  is  the  state  of  Canada  and  Australia, 
where,  among  the  highest  public  dignitaries,  are  found  men  who 
are  Irish,  not  simply  by  birth,  but  in  feeling  and  in  truth.  And 
the  conclusion  which  we  wish  to  draw  from  that  fact  is,  that  Ire- 
land is  greatly  benefited  by  the  high  positions  which  her  sons 
assume  in  those  distant  colonies ;  and  probably  no  one  will  ,be 
rash  enough  to  deny  or  controvert  in  any  way  this  point. 

The  truth  is,  that  by  emigration  Ireland  has  suddenly  ex- 
panded into  vast  regions  formerly  ignorant  of  her  name ;  regions 
which  swell  the  power  and  wealth  of  England,  and  which  are 
destined  to  play  a  very  important  part  in  her  future  history.  In 
these  districts  Irishmen  have  found  a  new  country ;  something 
of  the  ubiquity  of  the  English  belongs  to  them,  and  the  influ- 
ence, power,  and  weight,  thus  thrown  into  their  hands,  need  no 
further  comment.  To  show  this  in  extenso  would  be  only  to 
travel  over  ground  already  trodden  in  previous  pages,  enumer- 
ating the  various  countries  they  have  touched  upon  in  their 
Exodus.  Thus  have  our  seemingly  long  digressions  had  a  very 
direct  object  in  view,  and  served  powerfully  to  solve  our  original 
question.  We  may  now  see  that  the  resurrection  of  Ireland  was 
intimately  involved  in  the  emigration  of  her  children ;  that  much 
of  what  has  already  taken  place  to  aid  in  that  resurrection  may 
be  ascribed  to  this  emigration,  and  that  much  brighter  days  are 
yet  in  store  for  the  nation,  resulting  mainly  from  this  constant 
and  powerful  cause.  Let  no  one,  then,  lament  the  perseverance 
of  those  hardy  wanderers  who,  though  their  country  has  already 
31 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


been  depleted  by  millions,  still  leave  her  to  the  figure  of  seventy 
thousand  annually.  It  seems  that  in  Ireland  much  surprise  is 
expressed  at  the  movement  never  ceasing.  Providence  will  end 
it  in  its  own  good  time ;  if  God  still  allows  it,  it  is  surely  for  the 
accomplishment  of  his  own  mighty  and  benevolent  designs. 

To  conclude,  then,  this  long  chapter,  there  is  only  one  ques- 
tion to  be  put,  which  demands  a  few  words,  but  words,  in  our 
opinion  at  least,  of  vast  importance,  and  which  we  would  give 
all  that  is  ours  to  give,  to  see  promptly  and  energetically  attend- 
ed to  :  Has  Ireland  profited  by  this  so-often  mentioned  emi- 
gration to  the  extent  she  should  have  profited  ?  And  what 
ought  Irishmen  to  do  in  order  to  increase  the  advantages  de- 
rived from  it  \ 

"We  must  confess  that,  up  to  the  present,  the  benefit  is  far 
from  what  it  ought  to  have  been,  and  the  cause  of  this  lies  in 
want  of  organization  and  association.  They  have  seemed  to  let 
God  work  for  them  without  any  cooperation  on  their  part ;  for 
God's,  as  we  saw,  was  the  plan,  and  he  forced  them,  as  it  were, 
to  carry  out  his  design.  They  went  at  the  work  blindly,  merely 
following  the  impulse  of  circumstances,  with  no  preparatory 
organization,  and  less  still  of  association.  And  even  now,  when 
they  are  spread  out  over  such  vast  territories  in  such  mighty 
multitudes,  as  yet  they  have  given  no  sign  of  the  least  desire  of 
attempting  even  something  like  a  combined  effort  to  accelerate 
the  work  of  Providence.  The  only  signs  of  life  so  far  given  have 
been  violent  and  spasmodic,  directly  opposed  to  the  genius  of  the 
race,  which,  as  we  have  endeavored  to  prove,  has  nothing  revo- 
lutionary in  its  character,  and  is  not  given  to  dark  plots  and 
godless  conspiracies. 

Unfortunately,  also,  they  do  not  seem  naturally  adapted  to  a 
spirit  of  steady  and  long-continued  or  systematic  association.  In 
this,  chiefly,  does  their  race  differ  from  the  Scandinavian  stock, 
which  is  grafted  on  system,  combination,  and  steadiness,  in  pur- 
suit of  the  object  in  hand. 

But  why  not  begin,  at  least,  to  make  an  effort  in  that  direc- 
tion ?  The  Latin  races,  in  which  rnns  so  much  Celtic  blood,  are 
powerful  to  organize,  as  the  Romans  of  old,  and  the  French  and 
Spaniards  of  to-day,  have  so  often  proved.  The  Irish  have  been 
infused  with  plenty  of  foreign  blood,  after  their  many  national 
catastrophes,  although  we  believe  that  their  primitive  charac- 
teristics have  always  overcome  all  foreign  elements  introduced 
among  them ;  and,  what  the  race  could  scarcely  attempt  ages 
ago,  is  possible  now.  Moreover,  there  is  nothing  in  the  leanings 
of  race  which  may  not  be  overcome,  and  sure  without  any  radi 
cal  change  a  nation  can  adapt  itself  to  the  necessities  of  the  time, 
and  to  altered  circumstances.  Let  the  Irish  see  what  they  might 
effect  toward  the  resurrection  of  their  native  country,  if  ther 


THE  "EXODUS"  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 


483 


only  seriously  began  at  last  to  organize  and  associate  for  that 
purpose.  They  would  thus  turn  the  immense  forces  of  their 
nation,  now  scattered  over  the  world,  to  the  real  advantage  of 
their  birthplace.  In  union  is  strength ;  but  union  can  only  be 
promoted  by  association,  particularly  when  the  elements  to  be 
united  are  so  far  apart. 

For  such  an  object  do  we  believe  that  God  gave  man  in  these 
late  days  the  destroyers  of  space — the  steam-engine  and  the  elec- 
tric telegraph.  Those  powerful  agents  of  unification  were  un- 
known to  mankind  until  God  decreed  that  his  children  dispersed 
through  the  earth  should  be  more  compactly  united.  To  the 
Catholic  they  were  given,  in  the  first  place,  to  serve  God's  first 
purpose  by  making  the  Church  firmer  in  her  unity  and  more 
effective  in  the  propagation  of  truth  ;  but,  after  all,  the  mission 
of  the  Irish  to-day  is  only  a  branch  of  the  mission  of  the 
Church,  and,  if  only  on  that  account,  are  the  missionaries  deserv- 
ing of  all  honor  and  respect. 

If  in  the  designs  of  Providence  the  time  has  at  last  arrived 
for  the  dwelling  of  the  children  of  Japhet  in  the  tents  of  Sem, 
and  for  putting  an  end  to  the  terrible  evils  dating  from  the  dis- 
persion at  Babel  and  the  confusion  of  tongues,  the  object  of  these 
great  scientific  discoveries  is  still  more  apparent.  At  all  events, 
organization  and  association  are  clearly  needed  for  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Ireland,  and  the  sooner  a  step  is  taken  in  that  direction 
the  better. 

But,  what  association  would  we  propose  ?  What  should  be 
its  immediate  and  most  practicable  objects  ?  These  questions 
we  do  not  feel  competent  to  answer.  Let  Irishmen  be  once  con- 
vinced that  organization  is  the  great  lever  to  work  for  the  rais- 
ing up  of  their  down-trodden  nation,  and  they  will  know  best 
how  to  use  this  powerful  instrument.  The  leaders  of  the  nation 
in  that  holy  enterprise  should,  in  our  own  opinion,  be  its  spirit- 
ual leaders.  They  know  their  country,  and  they  love  it ;  they 
undoubtedly  possess  the  confidence  of  their  countrymen  :  they, 
then,  should  be  the  natural  originators  of  those  great  schemes. 
And  what  other  leaders  does  Ireland  possess,  what  body  like 
them,  acceptable  to  the  nation,  and  neither  to  be  bought  by 
money  nor  office  ? 

This  first  remark  naturally  presupposes  another :  that  the 
object  of  those  associations,  being  approved  of  by  the  religious 
guides  of  the  people,  cannot  be  other  than  holy,  and  consequent- 
ly require  no  secrecy  of  any  kind.  They  must  be  patent  to  the 
world,  as  not  being  antagonistic  to  any  established  law  or  au- 
thority. Every  man  desirous  of  becoming  a  member  of  the  asso- 
ciation should  know  beforehand  what  is  proposed  to  be  done,  and 
how  far  his  consent  is  to  be  given. 

One  other  important  point  strikes  us  :  the  centre  ot  organiza* 


484 


TIIE  "EXODUS"  AXD  ITS  EFFECTS. 


tion  should  be  in  Ireland.  Ireland  is  to  be  benefited  by  it,  and 
there  the  effort  should  naturally  begin,  where  its  results  will 
fall.  As  for  the  particular  direction  which  those  efforts  should 
take,  the  detail  of  the  whole  enterprise,  the  plan  of  the  cam- 
paign— all  this  lies  beyond  us,  and  a  sketch  of  it  would  most 
probably  be  a  mere  chimera. 

One  concluding  word  may  be  said,  however,  on  a  subject 
which  has  often  been  present  to  the  writer's  mind  :  The  fearful 
oppression  of  the  nation  began  by  robbing  the  people  of  their 
lands  and  making  them  paupers  :  one  of  the  first  aims  of  associa- 
tion, then,  should  evidently  be  the  raising  of  the  people  up  by 
the  restoration,  in  great  part  at  least,  of  the  soil  to  the  native 
race. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  propose  a  new  confiscation  now,  by 
wav  of  remedying  the  old  ones  ;  but  England  has  allowed  them 
to  buy  back  the  land  of  their  fathers  in  the  "  Encumbered  Es- 
tates Courts,"  and  by  the  law  recently  passed  which  disestablished 
the  Irish  Protestant  Church  %  Is  there  no  room  for  a  plan 
whereby  Irishmen,  who  have  grown  rich  in  foreign  countries, 
may  become  purchasers  of  the  land  thus  offered  for  sale  %  And, 
in  reply  to  the  natural  and  powerful  objection  to  such  a  plan  on 
the  score  of  distance  from  their  native  land,  and  the  natural  re- 
pugnance to  return  and  live  there,  and  break  up  new  ties,  which 
are  now  old,  and  have  made  them  what  they  are,  could  not  the 
fathers  spare  one  son  at  least,  whom  they  might  devote  to  the 
noble  purpose  of  becoming  Irish  again,  and  settling  on  an  Irish 
estate,  and  marrying  there  \  This  would  seem  an  easy  and  sim- 
ple manner  of  recreating  a  Catholic  gentry  in  the  island. 

This  is  merely  a  hint  thrown  out  to  exemplify  what  we  mean 
by  associations  for  the  purpose  of  raising  Ireland  up  again  ;  the 
many  possible  objects  of  national  organization  will  occur  to  any 
mind  giving  a  moment's  reflection  to  it.  This  subject  will  occu- 
py our  attention  at  greater  length  in  the  next  chapter. 

> 


CHAPTER  XYI. 


MORAL  FOECE  ALL- SUFFICIENT  FOR  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  IRELAND. 

This  chapter  will  be  devoted  to  the  island  itself.  For  many 
centuries  it  was  happy  in  its  seclusion  and  separation  from  the 
rest  of  Europe :  in  these  days  it  necessarily  forms  a  part  of  the 
whole  mass  of  Japhetic  races ;  its  isolation  is  no  longer  possible ; 
and,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  it  is  destined  once  again  to  become 
a  spot  illustrious  and  happy.  The  consideration  of  how  that  lus- 
tre and  happiness  are  to  come  upon  it  is  the  only  task  still  left  us. 

Whoever  takes  into  consideration  the  advantages  it  already 
enjoys,  and  compares  its  present  situation  with  that  of  a  hundred 
years  back,  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  remarkable  change 
for  the  better  which  has  taken  place  between  the  two  periods. 
Ireland  still  suffers,  and  suffers  sorely,  and  the  world  still  speaks 
with  justice  of  her  wrongs  ;  but,  in  whatever  light  they  may  appear, 
to  those  who  love  their  country,  no  one  can  pretend  that  it  still 
groans  under  the  weight  of  tyranny  which  has  formed  the  bur- 
den of  her  history.  And,  while  acknowledging  this  beneficial 
change  in  her  condition,  they  must  wonder  at  the  same  time  how 
small  was  the  share  which  the  natives  themselves  had  in  bring- 
ing it  about,  although  their  activity  never  relaxed,  and  they  had 
great  and  good  men  working  for  their  cause.  What,  in  truth, 
did  it? 

The  first  point  which  claims  our  attention  is  how  effectually 
the  moral  force  of  what  is  called  liberal  thought  dealt  a  death- 
blow to  the  penal  laws  half  a  century  before  any  of  them  were 
erased  from  the  statute  book. 

Liberal  thought  may  be  said  to  have  originated  in  England, 
whence  it  passed  over  to  France,  to  be  disseminated  and  take 
root  throughout  Europe  by  means  of  the  mighty  influence  then 
exercised  by  the  great  nation.  The  chief  object  which  animated 
the  minds  of  those  who  first  labored  for  its  admission  into  mod- 
ern European  principles  is  not  for  us  to  consider  here.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  this  chief  object  was  of  a  loosening  and  delete- 
rious nature  :  namely,  to  ruin  Christian  faith,  to  change  all  the 


486 


MORAL  FORCE. 


old  social  and  political  axioms  held  by  Christendom,  and  to  create 
a  new  society  imbued  with  what  now  goes  by  the  name  of  mod- 
ern ideas.  It  is  not  necessary  to  point  out  the  frightful  impru- 
dence as  well  as  criminality  of  many  of  those  who  were  the 
pioneers  of  the  movement.  We  must  only  take  the  new  princi- 
ples as  a  great  fact,  destined  yet  to  effect  a  radical  change  in  the 
ideas  of  men  of  all  races,  a  change  already  begun  in  Europe. 

Liberal  thought,  we  say,  originated  in  England ;  and  it 
would  be  easy  to  show  that  there  it  was  the  result  partly  of  Prot- 
estantism, partly  of  in  differ  en  tism,  the  ultimate  consequence  of  the 
great  principle  of  private  judgment. 

This  became  manifest  in  Great  Britain,  from  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  and,  as  was  previously  shown,  what  is 
called  the  British  Constitution  was  the  result  and  outgrowth  of 
deep  political  thought  matured  in  minds  indifferent  to  religion, 
of  men  who  were  as  little  Protestants  as  any  thing  else.  But 
they  were  deeply  possessed  by  a  sense  of  conservatism  and  mod- 
eration in  the  application  of  the  most  radical  principles,  which 
later  on  the  fiery  Gallic  mind  carried  to  their  final  and  most  dis- 
astrous consequences. 

But,  in  whatever  garb  it  may  have  appeared,  liberalism  was 
clearly  the  essence  of  the  British  Constitution,  as  established 
after  all  the  civil  and  dynastic  wars  of  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries.  The  leaders  of  the  English  nation  happened 
at  the  time  to  be  fully  wedded  to  aristocratic  ideas,  and  accord- 
ingly they  refused  to  recognize  all  the  consequences  of  their 
principles,  and  to  see  them  carried  out  to  the  full. 

It  was  admitted  that  the  king  reigned,  but  did  not  govern  ; 
that  the  nation  governed  by  its  representatives  ;  that  those  rep- 
resentatives were  created  by  election ;  that  a  nation  could  not  be 
taxed  without  its  free  consent;  that  thought,  religious  thought 
chiefly,  was  free ;  that  toleration,  therefore,  could  admit  of  no 
exception  in  point  of  religious  doctrine ;  and  all  the  other  mod- 
ern principles  which  have  at  length  been  admitted,  though  not 
always  observed,  as  governmental  axioms  by  all  European  na- 
tions. 

As  long  as  those  axioms  were  in  the  close  keeping  of  English 
patricians,  some  of  their  consequences  were  far  from  being  fully 
evolved ;  but  certain  Frenchmen,  Yoltaire  among  others,  hap- 
pening to  cross  the  Straits  of  Dover,  returned  with  them,  and, 
the  wretched  government  of  Louis  XV.  being  not  only  too  weak 
to  withstand,  but  even  conniving  at,  the  boldness  of  the  new  phi 
losophers,  the  French  language,  which  was  then  spoken  all  over 
Europe,  carried  with  it  from  mouth  to  mouth  the  new  and  fasci- 
nating doctrine  of  the  emancipation  of  thought. 

None  of  those  writers,  indeed,  undertook  to  plead  the  cause 
of  unfortunate  Ireland.  Yoltaire  threw  the  whole  of  France  into 


MORAL  FORCE. 


487 


agitation,  nay,  all  Europe,  to  the  wilds  of  Russia,  by  taking  up 
the  case  of  the  Protestant  Calas,  who  was  condemned  to  death 
and  executed  unjustly,  as  it  seems,  for  the  supposed  murder  of  a 
son  who  was  inclined  to  embrace  Catholicity  ;  but  never  a  word 
did  he  speak  of  the  suffering  which  at  that  time  had  settled  down 
over  the  whole  Irish  nation  solely  for  the  crime  of  its  religious 
convictions. 

Nevertheless,  toleration  became  the  catch- word  with  all.  It 
rang  out  loudly  from  a  thousand  French  pamphlets  and  ponder- 
ous tomes ;  it  was  caught  up  and  echoed  back  from  England ;  it 
penetrated  the  unkindly  atmosphere  of  Russia  even,  and  was  si- 
lently pondered  over  under  the  rule  of  an  unbelieving  despot. 

It  was  impossible  for  Ireland  not  to  derive  some  benefit  from 
all  this.  It  took  a  long  time,  indeed,  for  emancipation  of  thought 
to  cross  that  narrow  channel  which  divided  the  "  sister"  islands; 
for,  at  the  precise  period  when  the  doctrine  was  loudest  in  France, 
the  most  atrocious  penal  laws  were  being  executed  in  Ireland, 
and  there  seemed  no  hope  for  the  suffering  nation. 

But,  toward  the  end  of  that  eventful  eighteenth  century, 
the  breath  of  that  magic  word,  toleration,  at  last  was  felt  on  the 
shores  of  Erin.  When  it  was  in  the  mouths  of  all  Europe,  when 
English  clergymen  had  thoroughly  imbibed  the  new  doctrine, 
when  even  Scotch  ministers  began  to  thaw  under  its  genial  in- 
fluence, and  become  "  liberal  theologians,"  how  could  an  Irish 
magistrate  think  of  hanging  a  friar,  or  transporting  a  priest,  or 
imposing  a  heavy  fine  on  a  Catholic  who  committed  the  heinous 
offence  of  hearing  mass,  or  absenting  himself  from  the  services 
of  the  Established  Church  ?  At  last,  the  "  Mass-rock  "  was  no 
longer  the  only -spot  whereon  the  divine  victim  of  expiation 
could  be  offered  up ;  and  it  soon  came  to  be  known  that,  to  by- 
lanes  and  obscure  houses  in  the  cities  numbers  of  persons  flocked 
on  Sundays,  presided  over  by  their  own  Sogarth  Aroon.  On 
one  occasion,  already  noticed,  the  floor  of  a  rickety  house,  where 
they  were  worshipping,  gave  way,  to  the  killing  and  maiming 
of  many ;  thenceforth,  Catholics  were  allowed  to  assemble  in 
public  to  the  knowledge  of  all,  and,  though  "discoverers"  were 
still  legally  entitled  to  denounce  and  prosecute  them,  there  was 
small  chance  of  a  verdict  against  them. 

Thus  was  it  owing  to  a  great  moral  force — whether  good  or 
bad  is  not  the  question  now — that  the  penal  laws  first  became 
obsolete ;  and  Irishmen  had  absolutely  nothing  whatever  to  do 
in  the  matter.  Not  a  single  pamphlet,  demanding  toleration, 
and  proclaiming  the  rights  of  religious  freedom,  ever,  to  our 
knowledge,  issued  from  the  Irish  press  at  the  time.  No  book, 
written  by  an  Irish  author,  advocating  the  same,  was  ever  print- 
ed clandestinely,  as  were  so  many  French  books,  at  first  appear- 
ing in  Holland,  or  covertly  in  France,  with  a  false  title-page. 


£88 


MORAL  FORCE. 


When  the  Volunteer  movement  took  place,  toleration  was  in 
full  sway  in  Ireland.  As  was  seen,  the  question  debated  in  the 
Dungannon  Convention  referred  solely  to  the  extension  of  the 
elective  franchise  to  Catholics ;  and,  though  this  was  unjustly 
denied  them  by  the  majority  of  the  Volunteers,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  the  leaders  of  the  movement,  there  was  no  question  of 
any  longer  refusing  to  the  native  Irish  Catholics  the  right  of 
practising  their  religion  freely.  This  the  moral  sense  of  the  cen- 
tury had  secured  to  them. 

The  attainment  of  the  political  franchise  was  also  the  result 
of  purely  moral  force,  though  it  required  a  much  longer  time  in 
its  acquisition,  as  it  was  a  question,  not  merely  of  a  right  indi- 
vidual in  its  nature,  as  all  natural  religious  rights  are,  but  one 
affecting  external  society,  and  productive  of  material  results  of 
great  import. 

In  this  the  Irish  were  not  merely  passive ;  they  launched  them- 
selves heart  and  soul  on  the  sea  of  political  agitation.  From 
1810  to  1829,  the  Catholic  Association,  which  embraced  men  of 
all  classes  of  society,  was  incessant  in  its  clamor  for  emancipa- 
tion. The  chief  object  of  this  association  being  the  political 
franchise,  it  was  felt  by  all  that,  sooner  or  later,  that  privilege 
must  be  granted.  Meanwhile,  the  secular  enemies  of  Ireland 
were  not  idle.  Emancipation — that  is  the  political  franchise — 
they  called  a  "  Utopian  dream,"  which  they  asserted  England 
could  not  grant.  Was  it  not  directly  opposed  to  the  coronation- 
oath,  nay,  to  the  English  Constitution  ?  The  king  himself  was, 
and  publicly  declared  himself  to  be,  of  this  opinion.  According 
to  your  thorough-bred  Englishman,  the  state  would  rather  spend 
its  last  shilling,  and  sacrifice  its  last  man,  than  suffer  it.  How 
many  spoke  thus,  even  up  to  the  very  day  on  which  Wellington, 
changing  his  mind  perforce,  at  last  proposed  the  measure  ! 

All  this  opposition  was  perhaps  only  to  be  expected  ;  but  the 
strange  thing  was  that  many  excellent  patriotic  Irishmen,  Cath- 
olics, laymen  as  well  as  clerics  and  prelates,  were  opposed  to  the 
agitation  set  on  foot  by  O'Connell  and  his  friends ;  they  also 
thought  it  a  "  Utopian  dream,"  likely  only  to  bring  new  calami- 
ties upon  their  country.  They  seemed  not  to  see  that  the  refusal 
of  emancipation  meant  in  fact  the  continuance  of  the  small  Prot- 
estant minority  as  the  ruling  power — the  state — in  Ireland, 
which,  owing  to  moral  force,  Was  no  longer  so,  save  in  theory. 
In  fact,  already  the  majority,  that  is,  almost  the  whole  of  Ireland, 
was  an  immense  power.  Its  members  were  at  liberty  to  combine 
openly,  to  show  themselves,  to  speak,  to  write,  to  agitate  ;  they 
were,  in  a  word,  a  people,  and  the  Protestant  minority  no  longer 
really  constituted  the  state. 

It  is  true  that  the  majority  of  Irishmen  had  for  centuries  con- 
tinued to  act  unanimously  in  their  resistance  to  oppression  ;  as 


MORAL  FORCE. 


4S9 


was  seen,  they  had  been  a  people  from  the  moment  that  the 
English  kings  and  Parliaments  strove  to  coerce  their  religious 
faith,  and  more  particularly  from  the  destruction  of  clanship. 
They  were  truly  a  nation^  though  without  a  government  of  their 
own,  and  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time  bending  under  the 
most  intolerable  tyranny.  Religion  had  given  them  one  thought 
and  one  heart.  And  now  that,  owing  to  the  mighty,  the  irre- 
sistible moral  force  of  liberalism,  they  could  no  longer  be  openly 
persecuted  for  wishing  to  remain  Catholics,  the  question  arose : 
Were  they  still  to  be  absolutely  nothing  in  the  state  %  This  was 
the  real  demand  of  the  Catholic  Association,  and  every  one 
ought  to  have  seen  its  importance  and  the  certainty  of  success. 

Nevertheless,  a  great  number  of  sincere  Irishmen  did  not  see 
the  question  in  this  light,  and  were  covertly  or  openly  opposed 
to  the  agitation.  Ireland  appeared  to  be  divided  just  at  a  mo- 
mentous crisis. 

The  leaders  of  the  association  were  not  themselves  altogeth- 
er  agreed  as  to  the  best  mode  of  putting  their  question.  Some 
were  for  armed  opposition,  thinking  they  could  beat  England  in 
the  open  field.  But  the  great  originator  and  leader  of  the  move- 
ment sternly  opposed  so  mad  a  proposition.  He  was  for  moral 
force,  seeing  how  clearly  and  irresistibly,  even  if  unwittingly,  it 
was  working  for  their  cause.  In  spite  of  all  adverse  circum- 
stances, although  the  English  party  and  the  English  nation  stood 
up  en  masse  against  him,  although  many  Irishmen  refused  to 
join  in  the  agitation,  while  some  of  his  best  friends  wished  to 
risk  all  in  a  desperate  venture,  he  stood  calm,  firm,  and  so  confi- 
dent of  success,  that  he  caused  himself  to  be  returned  as  member 
for  the  County .  Clare  to  the  English  Parliament,  before  even 
emancipation  had  given  him  the  right  of  candidature.  It  was 
immediately  after  this  "  unconstitutional "  election  that  the 
boon  of  emancipation  was  suddenly  granted,  contrary  to  all 
expectation  and  probability,  and  O'Connell  proudly  took  his 
seat  among  the  representatives  of  Ireland  in  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment. 

If  this  measure  was  not  carried  by  a  purely  moral  force,  it  is 
hard  to  see  how  that  phrase  can  be  applied  to  any  thing  in  this 
world.  This  is  not  the  place  to  write  a  history  of  that  memo- 
rable struggle.  It  is  still  fresh  in  the  memory  of  many  living 
men.  We  merely  draw  a  conclusion  from  what  has  happened  in 
our  own  time,  and  one  which  may  be  said  to  be  a  clear  inference 
from  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  and  to  which  no  one  can 
offer  any  serious  objection.  This  conclusion  is,  the  omnipotence 
of  moral  force  in  gaining  for  Ireland  so  much  of  liberty,  of  po- 
litical and  social  privileges,  as  was  finally  granted  her. 

This  victory  won  for  the  Irish  Catholics  the  acknowledgment 
on  the  part  of  England  that  they  were  a  factor  in  the  stater  The 


490 


MORAL  FORCE. 


next  question  which  naturally  presented  itself  was,  "  "Wnat  waa 
to  be  their  exact  position  in  the  state  ? 99 

There  are  many  answers  to  this,  even  in  modern  ideas.  In 
purely  democratic  countries  suffrage  is  universal,  all  have  a  po- 
litical vote,  and  the  majority  is  supposed  to  rule.  In  countries 
where  the  government  is  oligarchical  or  aristocratic,  rank, 
wealth,  and  position,  are  "  privileged  ; 99  the  great  mass  is  de- 
prived of  a  vote.  Yet,  even  in  those  countries,  in  accordance 
with  the  modern  idea,  blood  is  not  every  thing  ;  a  certain  num- 
ber of  plebeians  are  admitted  to  a  share  in  public  affairs,  and 
their  number  is  greater  or  smaller  as  the  struggle,  which  is  al- 
ways going  on  between  the  few  and  the  many,  wavers  to  this 
side  or  to  that.  Thus,  in  the  English  Parliament  there  is  often 
an  "  electoral 99  or  "  reform 99  question  discussed  and  agitated. 
But  the  leaders  of  the  Catholic  Association  boldly  advocated  a 
question  prior  to  those — what  at  the  time  was  called  the  repeal 
of  the  Union,  and  is  now  known  as  "  home-rule." 

Must  Ireland  continue  to  be  governed  by  laws  enacted  in 
England  ?  The  number  of  her  special  representatives  is  com- 
paratively so  small,  her  Catholic  aspirations  meet  with  such 
deaf  ears  in  the  majority  of  the  members,  that,  as  long  as  Ire- 
land is  without  her  own  Parliament,  she  cannot  be  called  a  free 
country. 

Moreover,  according  to  modern  ideas,  self-government  seems 
to  be  admitted  as  an  axiom  ;  all  countries  have  a  right  to  it, 
under  the  limitation  of  constitutional  enactments,  either  in  "  con- 
federacies 99  or  in  "  imperial  states."  Why  should  Ireland  alone 
be  deprived  of  such  a  boon  ? 

It  is  known  how  O' Conn  ell  suddenly  grasped  the  question 
and  mastered  it.  His  first  repeal  association  was  suppressed  on 
the  instant  by  a  proclamation  of  the  Irish  Secretary.  O'Connell 
bowed  to  the  proclamation,  and  for  the  first  organization  substi- 
tuted another  called  "  the  Irish  Volunteers  for  the  Repeal  of  the 
Union."  This  met  with  the  same  fate  as  the  first.  The  great 
agitator  then  took  refuge  in  "  repeal  breakfasts,"  and  declared 
his  intention,  if  the  government  "  thought  fit  to  proclaim  down 
breakfasts,  to  resort  to  a  political  lunch,  and,  if  political  luncheon 
be  equally  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  viceroy,  he  would  have 
political  dinners ;  if  the  dinners  be  proclaimed,  we  must,  said 
he,  like  certain  sanctified  dames,  resort  to  tea  and  tracts." 

The  "breakfasts"  were  suppressed,  and  O'Connell  was  ar- 
rested. The  prosecution,  however,  was  soon  abandoned,  and 
for  the  moment,  despairing  of  success  in  advocating  repeal,  he 
came  down  to  the  "  Keform  party,"  from  which  he  obtained  at 
first  some  great  advantages  for  Ireland — the  administration  of 
Lord  Mulgrave,  the  best  the  island  had  known  for  centuries,  and 
the  appointment  of  many  Catholics  to  high  offices  in  the  state. 


MOKAL  FORCE. 


491 


It  is  not  necessary  to  relate  the  circumstances  which  finally 
drove  O'Connell  back  upon  his  original  plan,  and  the  formation, 
in  April,  1840,  of  the  "  Loyal  National  Repeal  Association." 

W  ithin  a  short  time  three  million  associates  were  contrib- 
uting annually  to  the  national  fund,  and  a  scene  was  witnessed 
which  the  most  devoted  lover  of  Erin  could  never  have  antici- 
pated. It  would  be  useless  to  search  the  annals  of  mankind  for 
a  more  startling  exhibition  of  purely  moral  force.  The  causes 
of  its  failure  will  appear  causes  altogether  of  a  temporary  and 
unexpected  character,  when  we  come  to  examine  them. 

But  the  stupendous  spectacle  itself  was  enough  to  impress 
the  beholder  with  the  irresistible  effect  which  it  could  not  fail  to 
produce.  A  whole  nation  obedient  to  the  voice  of  one  man  ! 
— and  that  a  man  who  had  never  been  invested  with  a  state  dig- 
nity, proud  only  of  having  once  represented  a  poor  Irish  county 
in  the  English  Parliament ;  who  was  eminently  a  man  of  the 
people,  identified  in  every  way  with  the  people,  speaking  a  lan- 
guage they  could  all  understand,  speaking  to  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands who  had  come  at  his  call  to  listen  to  him  :  at  one  time 
nearly  a  million  of  them  surrounded  him  on  the  hill  of  Tara. 

Had  a  demagogue  stood  in  his  place,  how  could  he  have  re- 
sisted the  temptation  of  using  such  power  to  effect  a  thorough 
revolution  %  O'Connell  had  only  to  utter  the  word,  and  those 
immense  masses  of  men  would  have  swept  the  whole  island  as 
with  a  besom  of  destruction.  The  impetuosity  of  the  Irish 
character  when  placed  in  such  circumstances  is  well  known,  and 
O'Connell  knew  it  better  than  any  man  living  at  the  time.  He 
showed  himself  truly  heroic  in  the  constant  moderation  of  his 
words,  even  in  scenes  the  most  exciting,  when  a  look  from  him 
might  have  lashed  the  nation  into  madness. 

To  bring  out  more  clearly  the  stamp  and  greatness  of  the 
man,  compare  his  conduct  with  that  of  the  leaders  in  the  great 
French  Revolution  of  1793.  ISTot  one  of  them  ever  possessed  a 
tithe,  not  merely  of  the  great  Irishman's  honesty  of  purpose,  but 
even  of  his  real  authority  over  the  people ;  yet,  what  frightful 
convulsions  did  they  not  bring  upon  the  state  in  the  days  of 
their  brief  popularity  ?  Throughout  the  whole  repeal  movement, 
when  millions  of  people  obeyed  implicitly  one  leader,  ready  to 
do  his  will  at  any  moment,  there  was  never  a  single  breach  of 
the  peace,  never  an  attempt  at  outrage,  never  a  threat  of  retalia- 
tion. 

The  only  difficulty  is  where  to  bestow  the  greater  admiration, 
on  O'Connell  or  the  people ;  for,  if  O'Connell  towered  almost 
above  humanity  in  his  never-varying  moderation,  with  such  a 
powerful  engine  in  his  hands,  the  people  offered  a  spectacle 
which  would  be  looked  for  in  vain  elsewhere  in  the  history  of 
man,  that  of  a  whole  nation  swayed  by  the  most  excited  feelings, 


402 


MORAL  FORCE. 


one  in  thought,  in  aims,  in  the  bitter  memory  of  the  past,  con 
6cious  of  their  irresistible  power  in  the  present,  yet  never  yield- 
ing to  passion,  but  dispersing  quietly  after  listening  to  the  im- 
passioned harangues  of  their  leader,  to  return  to  their  homes  and 
resume  their  ordinary  occupations.  Any  impartial  man.  who 
has  read  history  at  all,  must  acknowledge  that  this  spectacle  is 
unexampled,  and  in  itself  vindicates  the  Irish  character  from  the 
foolish  aspersions  so  lavishly  cast  upon  it,  and  so  thoughtlessly 
repeated  still. 

One  great  fact  was  brought  out  by  those  demonstrations 
which  afterward  appeared  so  barren  of  result,  namely,  the  exist- 
ence of  a  nation  full  of  life  and  energy,  of  a  surprising  vigor, 
and  at  the  same  time  governed  by  stern  principles  as  well  as 
swayed  by  emotion.  It  would  be  idle  to  pretend  that  they 
were  a  non-entity,  save  as  forming  a  part  of  the  British  Empire, 
existing  on  sufferance  as  it  were,  merely  to  add  to  the  greatness 
and  the  glory  of  the  English  nation.  They  possessed  a  life  of 
their  own.  That  life  had,  as  was  seen,  been  instilled  into  them 
by  their  religious  convictions  alone  ;  it  had  lain  dormant  for 
more  than  a  century  ;  and  now  it  burst  forth  in  the  view  of  the 
wori %  to  proclaim  that  the  Irish  nation  still  existed.  And  this 
wondeAl  resurrection  was  due  to  moral  force  alone. 

Though  the  Irish  people  then  appeared  so  different  from  that 
humbled,  crushed  mass  of  oppressed  beings,  who,  a  hundred 
years  before,  lay  so  completely  at  the  mercy  of  their  masters,  it 
was,  nevertheless,  the  same  people,  and  the  difference  was  purely 
one  of  circumstances.  Had  they  been  allowed  in  the  previous 
century  to  manifest  their  feelings,  as  a  happy  change  in  the  state 
of  affairs  now  permitted  them,  they  would  assuredly  have  acted 
in  exactly  the  same  manner.  And  this  reflection  tends  to  confirm 
the  opinion,  several  times  here  expressed,  that  the  Irish  people 
existed  all  along,  and  that  the  most  adverse  circumstances  had 
never  succeeded  in  destroying  it. 

Meanwhile,  O'Connell  was  the  sovereign  of  that  nation,  and 
one  whose  power  over  his  subjects  was  greater  than  that  of  any 
of  the  kings  or  emperors  who  occupied  the  various  thrones  of 
Europe  at  the  time.  Later  events  proved  how  precarious  was 
the  authority  of  all  those  who  appeared  to  hold  the  fate  of  mill- 
ions in  their  hands ;  the  authority  of  O'Connell  alone  was 
deeply  rooted  in  the  heart  of  his  nation.  From  the  humble 
position  of  a  Kerry  lawyer,  he  had  gradually  risen  to  the  proud 
preeminence  which  he  occupied  in  the  eyes  of  Europe,  and  he 
owed  it  solely  to  that  moral  force  of  which  he  was  so  sincere  an 
advocate,  and  which  he  knew  so  well  how  to  wield. 

But  how  came  all  the  high  hopes  then  so  ardently  enter- 
tained by  the  friends  of  Ireland  to  be  so  suddenly  dashed  to 
the  ground,  and  O'Connell  to  die  of  a  broken  heart  s 


MORAL  FORCE. 


493 


It  seems,  indeed,  to  be  the  opinion  of  Irishmen  even,  that 
O'ConnelPs  theory  was  faulty  :  that  moral  force  alone  could  not 
restore  Ireland  to  her  lawful  position  among  nations ;  that,  in 
fact,  he  failed  by  his  very  moderation,  and  that  the  bitterness 
which  clouded  his  last  days  was  the  natural  consequence  of  his 
false  and  delusive  expectations.  Such  seems  now  to  be  the 
almost  universal  opinion. 

Yet,  in  all  his  wonderful  career,  only  one  fault  can  be  brought 
against  him.  Yielding,  on  one  occasion,  in  1843,  to  the  exu- 
berance of  his  feelings,  "  he  committed  himself  to  a  specific 
promise  that  within  six  months  repeal  would  be  an  accom- 
plished fact." 

This  promise,  rashly  given,  and  showing  no  result,  is  said  to 
have  cooled  down  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people,  who,  from  that 
time,  lost  confidence  in.  their  leader;  and  to  this  alone  is  the 
utter  failure  of  the  great  agitation  ascribed. 

But  there  is  so  little  of  real  truth  in  this  assertion  that,  when, 
on  his  well-known  imprisonment,  after  the  law  lords,  in  the 
British  House  of  Peers,  declared  that  the  conviction  of  O'Con- 
nell  and  his  colleagues  was  wrong,  he  was  restored  to  liberty, 
the  writer  just  quoted  confesses  that  "  overwhelming  demon- 
strations of  unchanged  affection  and  personal  attachment  poured 
in  upon  him  from  his  countrymen.  Their  faith  in  his  devotion 
to  Ireland  was  increased  a  hundred-fold." 

It  is  true  that  the  same  writer,  Mr.  A.  M.  O'Sullivan,  adds 
that  "  their  faith  in  the  efficiency  of  his  policy,  or  the  surety  of 
his  promise,  was  gone  ;  "  but  to  reconcile  this  phrase  with  what 
precedes  it,  it  must  not  be  taken  absolutely.  The  want  of  faith 
here  spoken  of  was  restricted  to  the  members  of  a  new  party, 
which  had  been  organized  chiefly  during  the  imprisonment  of 
the  great  leader,  the  "  Young  Ireland  party,"  the  new  advocates 
of  physical  force  against  England,  composed  of  the  ardent  and, 
most  surely,  well-intentioned  young  men,  who  failed  so  egre- 
giously  a  few  years  later. 

This  party  was  the  chief  cause  of  O'  Conn  ell's  failure,  coupled 
with  the  awful  famine  which  followed  soon  after,  and  left  the 
Irish  small  desire  for  political  agitation  with  grim  Death  staring 
them  in  the  face,  and  the  main  question  before  them  one  of 
avoiding  starvation  and  utter  ruin. 

Both  causes,  however,  were  purely  of  a  temporary  nature, 
and  the  efficacy  of  moral  force  remained  strong  as  ever,  and,  in 
fact,  the  only  thing  possible. 

The  Young  Ireland  party  could  not  exist  long,  as  its  avowed 
policy  was  so  rash,  so  ill-founded,  and  poorly  carried  out,  that 
the  mere  breath  of  British  power  was  enough  to  dissipate  it 
hopelessly  in  a  moment.  Moreover,  it  placed  itself  in  open 
antagonism  to  the  mass  of  the  Catholic  clergy,  and  appeared  to 


MORAL  FORCE. 


have  so  ill  studied  the  history  of  the  country  that  its  members 
did  not  know  the  real  power  which  religion  exercised  over  their 
countrymen.  They  could  not  but  fail,  and  their  futile  attempt 
only  served  to  render  worse  the  condition  of  the  country  they 
were  ready  to  die  for. 

It  would  be  enough  to  add  here,  of  other  subsequent  attempts 
of  the  same  nature,  that  no  real  hope  for  the  complete  resurrec- 
tion of  Ireland  could  be  looked  to  from  such  abortive  and  still- 
born conspiracies  ;  especially  when  the  alliance  entered  into  by 
some  of  them  with  the  revolutionary  party  of  European  socialists 
and  atheists  is  taken  into  account,  men  from  whom  nothing  but 
disorder,  anarchy,  and  crime,  can  be  expected.  Thus,  those  who 
wish  well  to  the  Irish  cause  have  only  moral  force  to  fall  back 
upon. 

It  is  needless  to  do  more  than  mention  the  passing  nature  of 
the  frightful  calamity  of  famine  and  consequent  expatriation, 
which  have  been  sufficiently  dwelt  upon.  The  Irish  race  has 
passed  through  ordeals  more  trying  than  either  of  these ;  it  has 
survived  them,  and  increased  in  numbers  after  all  previous 
calamities,  as  it  doubtless  will  after  this  last,  when  God  thinks 
proper  to  abate  in  the  people  the  eagerness  they  still  feel  for 
leaving  their  native  country. 

All  the  progress  made  by  Ireland,  so  far,  is  due,  therefore, 
solely  to  the  kind  action  of  Divine  Providence,  which  is  generally 
called  the  "logic  of  events,"  aided  by  men  endowed  with  pru- 
dence and  energy.  It  would  be  superfluous  for  our  purpose  to 
detail  at  length  several  other  progressive  steps  made  subsequent- 
ly, which  the  mad  attempt  of  the  party  of  physical  force  would 
have  effectually  prevented  if  open  tyranny  were  as  easy  a  thing 
in  these  days  as  it  once  was.  The  establishment  of  the  "  Encum- 
bered Estates  Courts,"  and  the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish 
Protestant  Church,  are  the  chief  measures  alluded  to :  the  first 
so  fruitful  of  good  to  Ireland  since  its  adoption,  and  the  second 
destined  to  be  no  less  so.  It  is  useless  to  remark  that  physical 
force  had  nothing  to  do  with  their  introduction,  and  that  the 
British  statesmen  who  advocated  and  carried  them  through  were 
swayed  only  by  that  unseen  power  which  is  said  by  Holy  Script- 
ure to  "  hold  the  heart  of  kings  in  its  hands."  Let  the  Irish  do 
their  part,  and  Heaven  will  continue  to  smile  on  them. 

Since  it  is  to  this  unseen  power  that  all  the  improvement 
now  visible  in  the  condition  of  the  Irish  nation  is  due,  it  is  only 
natural  to  expect  from  it  every  thing  that  is  still  wanting.  For 
we  are  far  from  thinking  that  nothing  more  is  to  be  done,  and 
that  all  to  be  desired  has  been  obtained.  That  the  nation  is  still 
dissatisfied,  is  plain  enough ;  and  it  must  be  right  in  not  feeling 
contented  with  the  various  measures  for  its  improvement  ten- 
dered it  so  far.   The  voice  of  its  natural  leaders — of  the  ^relates 


MORAL  FORCE. 


495 


and  clergy — proclaims  that  there  are  many  things  to  change,  and 
many  new  measures  to  be  introduced. 

The  first  and  foremost  of  these  is  a  thorough  remedy  for  the 
disgraceful  state  of  pauperism  to  which  the  great  majority  of  the 
Irish  nation  is  yet  reduced.  That  pauperism  was  wilfully  estab- 
lished, and  this  national  crime  of  England  stands  unatoned  for 
still.  It  would  be  unjust  to  say  that  the  policy  which  produced 
it  is  pursued  to-day  by  the  English  Government ;  we  sincerely 
believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  state  of  things  which  has  existed 
for  the  last  two  centuries  is  seriously  deplored  by  many  of  those 
who,  under  God,  hold  in  their  keeping  the  destiny  of  millions 
of  men.  But  it  is  surprising  that  so  many  projects,  so  many 
attempts  at  legislation,  the  writing  of  so  many  wise  books,  dis- 
cussions so  many  and  so  exhaustive  of  the  evil,  should  all  result 
in  leaving  the  evil  almost  as  it  stood. 

If  we  listen  to  those  who  know  Ireland  perfectly,  who  have 
either  spent  their  lives  in  the  country,  or  traversed  its  surface 
leisurely  and  intelligently,  it  would  seem  as  though  the  old  de- 
scriptions of  her  in  the  time  of  her  greatest  misfortunes  would 
still  be  appropriate  and  true. 

"  No  devastated  province  of  the  Roman  Empire,"  said  Father 
Lavelle,  but  yesterday,  in  his  "  Irish  Landlord,"  "  ever  presented 
half  the  wretchedness  of  Ireland.  At  this  day,  the  mutilated 
Fellah  of  Egypt,  the  savage  Hottentot  and  New-Hollander,  the 
live  chattel  of  Cuba,  enjoy  a  paradise  in  comparison  with  the 
Irish  peasant,  that  is  to  say,  with  the  bulk  of  the  Irish  nation." 

But,  as  this  short  passage  deals  only  in  generalities,  and  as 
there  may  be  some  suspicion  of  the  warm  nature  of  the  writer 
having  given  a  higher  color  to  his  words  than  was  warranted  by 
the  facts,  let  us  listen  to  the  less  impassioned  utterances  of  trav- 
ellers who  have  recently  visited  the  island  :  let  us  see  the  Irish  at 
home  in  their  towns  and  in  the  country. 

I.  In  towns  and  cities :  The  most  Rev.  Archbishop  of  Dub- 
lin, writing  in  1 857  to  Lord  St.  Leonards,  on  the  state  of  his  flock 
in  Dublin,  says :  "  Were  your  lordship  to  visit  some  of  the 
ruined  lanes  and  streets  of  Dublin,  your  heart  would  thrill  with 
horror  at  the  picture  of  human  woe  which  would  present  itself." 

And  in  a  pastoral  letter,  November  27,  lS61,he  spoke  of  "  tens 
of  thousands  of  human  beings,  destitute  of  all  the  comforts  of 
life,  who  are  to  be  met  with  at  every  step  in  all  great  towns  and 
cities.  If  you  enter  the  wretched  abodes  where  they  live,  you 
will  find  that  they  have  no  fuel,  that  they  are  unprovided  with 
beds  and  other  furniture,  and  that  generally  they  have  not  a  sin- 
gle blanket  to  protect  them  from  the  cold." 

Abbe  Perraud,  after  a  thorough  examination  of  the  subject, 
wrote,  in  1864,  in  "  Ireland  under  English  Rule  :  " 

U  The  poor  quarters  of  Cork,  Limerick,  and  Drogheda,  present 


496 


MORAL  FORCE 


the  same  spectacle  as  Dublin,  and  justify  the  sad  proverbial  celeb- 
rity of '  Irish  rags.'  Dirt,  negligence,  and  want  of  care,  doubt- 
less, go  a  long  way  in  giving  to  destitution  in  Ireland  its  repul- 
sive and  hideous  form  ;  but  who  is  unaware  that  continued  and 
hopeless  destitution  engenders,  as  of  necessity,  listlessness  and 
carelessness,  and  that,  to  enter  into  a  struggle  with  poverty,  there 
must  be  at  least  some  chance  of  carrying  off  the  victory  ?  " 

A  German  Protestant,  Dr.  Julius  Rodenberg,  writing  in 
1861,  expressed  his  astonishment  at  the  sight  of  Ireland's  pov- 
erty, as  he  saw  it  in  the  streets  of  Dublin,  although  he  had 
doubtless  read  a  great  deal  about  it  previously.  "  You  are  in  a 
country,"  he  says,  "  whence  people  emigrate  by  thousands,  while 
fields,  of  such  an  extent  and  power  of  production  as  would  sup- 
port them  all,  lie  fallow." 

And  with  respect  to  the  progress  already  made,  M.  de  Beau- 
mont had  remarked  many  years  before  that  in  Ireland  a  certain 
relative  progress  was  quite  compatible  with  the  continued  exist- 
ence of  pauperism  among  the  lower  classes.  u  One  single  cause," 
he  remarks,  "  suffices  to  explain  why  the  agricultural  population 
becomes  poorer,  while  the  prosperity  of  the  rich  is  on  the  in- 
crease :  it  is  that  all  improvement  in  the  land  is  profitable  solely 
to  the  proprietor,  who  exacts  more  rent  from  the  farmer  in  pro- 
portion as  he  works  the  land  into  a  better  state." 

Since  M.  de  Beaumont  wrote,  the  pauperism  in  the  cities  has 
assumed  a  more  wretched  and  repulsive  form,  in  consequence  of 
the  crowding  there  of  poor  peasants  who  had  been  evicted  from 
their  small  farms  and  fled  to  the  nearest  city  or  town  with  the 
nope  of  finding  there  at  least  charity. 

"For  the  last  ten  years,"  wrote  Abbe  Perraud,  in  1864, 
u  there  has  been  taking  place  in  the  large  cities  an  accumulation 
of  poor  as  fatal  to  their  health  as  to  their  morality.  They  are 
mostly  country  people  whom  eviction  has  driven  from  the  coun- 
try, who  have  been  unable  to  emigrate,  and  who  were  unwilling 
to  shut  themselves  up  immediately  in  the  workhouses.  The 
resources  they  procure  for  themselves,  by  doing  odd  work,  are  so 
completely  insufficient,  that  it  is  impossible  to  be  surprised  at 
their  destitution." 

Dr.  Rodenberg,  describing  the  state  of  the  poor  country  peo- 
ple crowded  in  the  "Liberties  of  Dublin,"  says  of  the  rooms  in 
which  they  live :  "  In  those  holes  the  most  wretched  and  pitiable 
laborers  imaginable  live ;  they  often  lie  by  hundreds  together  on 
the  bare  ground." 

Such  citations  might  be  sadly  multiplied,  but  those  given  are 
sufficient  as  descriptive  of  the  state  of  the  poor  Irish  in  the 
cities.  Let  us  now  see  how  the  peasants  live  in  the  country  in 
many  parts  of  Ireland : 

II.  "  The  destitution  of  the  agricultural  classes,"  writes  Abbe 


MOEAL  FORCE. 


497 


Perraud,  from  personal  observation,  "in  order  to  be  rightly- 
appreciated,  must  be  seen  in  the  boggy  and  mountainous  regions 
of  Munster,  of  Connaught,  and  of  the  western  portion  of 
Ulster. 

"  The  ordinary  dwelling  of  the  small  tenant,  of  the  day-labor- 
er; in  that  part  of  Ireland,  answers  with  the  utmost  precision  the 
description  of  it  twenty  years  ago  given  by  M.  de  Beaumont : 
'Let  the  reader  picture  to  himself  four  walls  of  dried  mud, 
which  the  rain  easily  reduces  to  its  primitive  condition  ;  a  little 
thatch  or  a  few  cuts  of  turf  form  the  roof;  a  rude  hole  in  the 
roof  forms  the  chimney,  and  more  frequently  there  is  no  other 
issue  for  the  smoke  than  the  door  of  the  dwelling  itself.  One 
solitary  room  holds  father,  mother,  grandfather,  and  children. 
No  furniture  is  to  be  seen  ;  a  single  litter,  usually  composed  of 

frass  or  straw,  serves  for  the  whole  family.  Five  or  six  half-na- 
ed  children  may  be  seen  crouching  over  a  poor  fire.  In  the 
midst  of  them  lies  a  filthy  pig,  the  only  inhabitant  at  its  ease, 
because  its  element  is  filth  itself.' 

"  Into  how  many  dwellings  of  this  kind  have  we  not  ourselves 
penetrated- — especially  in  the  counties  of  Kerry,  Mayo,  and  Done- 
gal— more  than  once  obliged  to  stoop  down  to  the  ground,  in 
order  to  penetrate  into  these  cabins,  the  entrance  to  which  is  so 
low  that  they  look  more  like  the  burrows  of  beasts  than  dwell- 
ings made  for  man ! 

"  Upon  the  road  from  Kilkenny  to  Grenaugh,  in  the  vicinity 
of  those  beautiful  lakes,  at  the  entrance  of  those  parks,  to  which, 
for  extent  and  richness,  neither  England  nor  Scotland  can  probr 
ably  offer  any  thing  equal,  we  have  seen  other  dwellings.  A  few 
branches  of  treesr  interlaced  and  leaning  upon  the  slope  in  the 
road,  a  few  cuts  of  turf,  and  a  few  stones  picked  up  in  the  fields, 
compose  these  wretched  huts — less  spacious,  and  perhaps  less 
substantial,  than  that  of  the  American  savage." 

At  the  time  of  Abbe  Perraud's  visit,  a  correspondent  of  the 
Dublin  Saunders  News-Letters,  who  was  commissioned  to  inquire 
into  the  condition  of  the  peasants,  gave  the  following  replv,  which, 
as  the  abbe  justly  remarks,  is  but  the  faithful  echo  of  all  the  de- 
scriptions made  within  the  last  half-century : 

"  The  inhabitants  of  Erris  appear  to  be  the  most  wretched 
of  all  human  beings.  Their  cabins,  their  patched  and  tattered 
clothes,  their  broken-down  gait  —  every  thing  bears  witness  to 
their  poverty.  Their  beds  consist  of  a  few  bits  of  wood  crossed 
one  upon  the  other,  supported  by  two  heaps  of  stones,  and  cov- 
ered with  straw ;  their  whole  bedclothes  a  miserable,  worn-out 
quilt,  without  any  blankets.  .  .  .  But  there  is  nothing  in  Ireland 
like  the  habitations  which  the  people  of  the  village  of  Fall  more 
have  made  for  themselves,  who  have  been  evicted  by  Mr.  Palmer. 
They  are  composed  of  masses  of  granite,  picked  up  on  the  shore, 
32 


4:98 


MORAL  FORCE. 


and  roughly  laid  one  by  the  other.  These  cabins  are  so  low  that 
a  man  cannot  stand  upright  in  them ;  so  narrow  that  they  can 
hardly  hold  three  or  four  persons." 

After  all,  F.  Lavelle  was  guilty  of  no  exaggeration  in  stating 
that  the  hut  of  the  Hottentot  was  better  than  that  of  the  Irish 
peasant.  But,  in  the  district  of  Gweedore,  northeast  of  County 
Donegal,  the  state  of  the  peasantry  is  more  deplorably  wretched 
still  than  in  any  other  part  of  Ireland.  At  the  time  of  a  cele- 
brated parliamentary  inquiry  into  the  matter  in  185S,  a  London- 
derry newspaper  stated  that  "  there  are  in  Donegal  about  four 
thousand  adults,  of  both  sexes,  who  are  obliged  to  go  barefoot 
during  the  winter,  in  the  ice  and  snow — pregnant  women  and 
aged  people  in  habitual  danger  of  death  from  the  cold.  .  .  .  It  is 
rare  to  find  a  man  with  a  calico  shirt ;  but  the  distress  of  the 
women  is  still  greater,  if  that  be  possible.  There  are  many  hun- 
dreds of  families  in  which  five  or  six  grown-up  women  have 
among  them  no  more  than  a  single  dress  to  go  out  in.  .  .  . 
There  are  about  five  hundred  families  who  have  but  one  bed 
each — in  which  father,  mother,  and  children,  without  distinction 
of  age  or  sex,  are  crowded  pell-mell  together." 

If  from  the  dwellings  and  clothing  of  the  peasantry  we  pass 
to  their  food,  there  is  no  need  of  adding  any  thing  to  what  was 
said  on  this  point  when  describing  the  periodical  famines.  One 
detail,  however,  not  yet  mentioned,  deserves  to  be  recorded : 

"  In  the  district  of  Gweedore,"  says  Abbe  Perraud,  "  our  eyes 
were  destined  to  witness  the  use  of  sea-weed.  Stepping  once 
into  a  cabin,  in  which  there  was  no  one  but  a  little  girl  charged 
with  the  care  of  minding  her  younger  brothers,  and  getting 
ready  the  evening  meal,  we  found  upon  the  fire  a  pot  full  of 
doulamaun  ready  cooked ;  we  asked  to  taste  it,  and  some  was 
handed  to  us  on  a  little  platter. 

"  This  weed,  when  well  dressed,  produces  a  kind  of  viscous 
juice ;  it  has  a  brackish  taste,  and  savors  strongly  of  salt  water. 
We  were  told  in  the  country  that  the  only  use  of  it  is  to  increase, 
when  mixed  with  potatoes,  the  mass  of  aliment  given  to  the 
stomach.  The  longer  and  more  difficult  the  work  of  the  stomach, 
the  less  frequent  are  its  calls.  It  is  a  kind  of  compromise  with 
hunger ;  the  people  are  able  neither  to  suppress  it  nor  to  satisfy 
it ;  they  endeavor  to  cheat  it.  We  have  also  been  assured  that 
this  weed  cannot  be  eaten  alone ;  it  must  be  mixed  with  vegeta- 
bles, since  of  itself  it  has  no  nutritive  properties  whatever." 

How  long  is  such  a  state  of  things  likely  to  continue  \  It 
has  already  existed  long  enough  to  be  a  disgrace  to  the  much- 
vaunted  benevolence  ot  the  nineteenth  century.  A  sure  and 
radical  remedy  must  be  found  for  it ;  and,  as  it  has  been  already 
so  long  delayed,  it  should  be  found  the  more  promptly.  It 
seems  that  the  tenure  of  land  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  question, 


MORAL  FORCE. 


499 


and  that  respect  for  what  are  called  "  established  rights  "  offers 
the  main  difficulty.  Those  rights,  indeed,  were  founded  on  the 
cruellest  wrong  and  the  most  flagrant  injustice ;  but  as  posses- 
sion is  "  nine  points  of  the  English  law,"  and  so  long  a  time  has 
passed  since  the  land  changed  hands,  prescription  must  be  ad- 
mitted and  let  them  be  called  rights  ;  nor  can  any  man  in  his 
senses  ask  for  a  violent  subversion  of  society  for  the  sake  of 
iio;litiii£:  an  old  wrong. 

But  it  has  ever  been  a  maxim  of  jurisprudence  that  mmmum 
J ics,  summa  injuria  /  and  this  axiom  finds  its  full  explanation 
m  the  present  case,  when  it  is  considered  that  the  jus  is  on  the 
side  of  a  comparatively  small  number  of  men,  for  the  most  part 
absentee  landlords,  while  the  injuria  leans  to  the  great  mass  of 
the  primitive  owners  of  the  soil.  The  time-honored  policy  of 
the  English  Government,  that  all  the  open  abuses  of  landlordism 
should  be  watched  over  and  protected  with  the  most  jealous  care, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  wretched  farmer  and  cottier  is 
supposed  to  have  no  rights  to  defend  and  guard,  should  be 
abandoned  at  once  and  forever,  with  a  firmness  that  can  leave  no 
room  for  doubt  or  equivocation,  if  the  restoration  of  confidence 
on  the  part  of  the  Irish  is  esteemed  any  thing  worth. 

But,  if  for  no  other  motive,  at  least  for  the  sake  of  securing 
peace  and  order  in  Ireland,  a  remedy  must  be  found.  There  is 
no  reason  why  the  Irish  should  longer  remain  a  nation  of  pau- 
pers ;  and,  although  some  may  still  pretend  that  the  fault  and  its 
remedy  lie  with  themselves,  unprejudiced  men  will  readily 
acknowledge  that  the  fault  lay  first,  at  least,  at  England's  door 
— a  fact  which  the  London  Times  has  conceded  often  and  pro- 
claimed loudly  enough. 

Let  British  statesmen,  then,  devise  proper  means  for  such  an 
end  without  social  commotion,  with  as  little  disturbance  of  pri- 
vate rights  as  possible  ;  for  the  object  is  an  imperious  necessity. 
It  seems  that  the  latest  law  enacted  with  this  view  is  not  the 
measure  that  was  required  ;  is  totally  inadequate  in  its  pro- 
visions, scope,  and  extent.  In  such  a  case  it  is  always  open  to 
legislators  to  introduce  a  new  and  more  satisfactory  measure ; 
and  moral  force  will  surely  bring  this  about,  provided  it  is  true 
to  itself.  We  confess  to  Having  no  scheme  of  our  own  to  set 
forth  ;  but  Irishmen  are  free,  nay  entitled,  to  speak,  to  write  on, 
and  discuss  the  subject ;  and  a  serious,  steady,  but  lawful  agita- 
tion of  the  question  will  surely  find  its  true  and  final  solution. 
The  last  Galway  election,  notwithstanding  the  temporary 
triumph  of  Judge  Keogh,  was  a  beginning  in  the  right  direc- 
tion. 

There  is  no  need  here  of  revolution,  of  what  the  French  call 
une  jaauerie,  of  arming  the  populace  for  the  purpose  of  violently 
ejecting  the  great  land-owners.    No  Irishman  has  ever  stood  for 


500 


MORAL  FORCE. 


60  calamitous  a  remedy.  The  aid  of  the  Internationalists  will 
certainly  never  be  called  in  by  the  true  children  of  Erin  for  any 
purpose  whatever.  It  seems  that  the  great  and  holy  Pontiff", 
this  IX.,  made  this  remark  to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  at  their  last 
interview  at  the  Vatican,  and,  according  to  the  report,  the 
prince  fully  admitted  its  truth  as  far,  at  least,  as  he,  by  any  out- 
ward sign,  could  show. 

The  question  is  one  of  pure  justice,  to  be  settled  within  the 
limits  of  order  and  law ;  and  surely,  when  all  admit  that  the 
evil  is  so  crying,  that  a  remedy  must  be  found,  one  will  be 
found,  which,  while  it  does  no  real  injury  to  any  person,  will 
bring  comfort  and  relief  to  the  most  deserving  and  suffering 
race  of  men — the  Irish  peasantry.    We  will  soon  see  how. 

But  the  Irishman  is  not  only  physically  destitute  ;  he  is  also 
destitute  mentally ;  and,  if  the  first  case  calls  for  a  prompt 
remedy,  the  second  is  no  less  urgent.  Pauperism  and  ignorance 
were  the  two  terrible  engines  so  long  worked  by  England  for 
the  degradation  and  final  destruction  of  the  Irish  race.  Our 
readers  have  seen  how  persistently  was  education,  of  any  kind, 
refused  to  the  natives.  The  Universities  of  Dublin  and  Drog- 
heda  in  the  fourteenth  century,  the  cathedral  schools,  founded 
by  the  Anglo-Normans,  in  the  same  age,  carefully  excluded  the 
Irish  from  their  benefits.  And,  when  the  Reformation  set  in, 
with  its  long  series  of  oppressions,  no  Catholic  could  share  in 
the  new  foundations  of  the  Tudors  and  the  Stuarts  without  first 
abjuring  his  religion.  Penal  statute  after  penal  statute  made  of 
all  the  shifts,  to  which  the  Irish  were  driven  in  order  to  educate 
their  children,  so  many  crimes,  punishable  by  death  or  transpor- 
tation. That,  under  such  a  state  of  things,  they  could  remain 
Catholics  without  becoming  idiots  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
instances  on  record  of  buoyancy  of  spirit  and  soundness  of  mind 
on  the  part  of  a  whole  nation. 

From  the  end  of  the  last  century  the  policy  of  England 
changed  completely  in  appearance.  The  foundation  and  endow- 
ment by  the  state  of  the  great  college  of  Maynooth,  destined  for 
the  education  of  the  Irish  clergy,  in  1795,  was  certainly  a  step  on 
the  right  road,  and  if  only  primary  schools  for  the  people  had,  at 
the  same  time,  been  spread  all  over  the  island  on  the  same  prin- 
ciple of  true  liberality,  the  old  injustice  on  the  matter  of  educa- 
tion would  have  been  atoned  for  and  remedied,  to  a  great  extent. 

But  the  Kildare  Peace  Society  and  the  Church  Education 
Society,  founded  in  1839,  showed  that  the  antagonism  to  the 
Catholic  Church  in  Ireland  was  far  from  being  dead ;  nay,  was 
as  rife  as  ever. 

Lord  Stanley's  National  Education  System,  in  1831,  at  first 
seemed  of  a  character  altogether  above  Protestant  or  infidel 
proselytism.    But,  the  composition  of  the  various  boards  under 


MORAL  FORCE. 


501 


that  system,  and  some  of  the  measures  adopted,  gave  evidence 
clearly  and  soon  enough  that  the  education  proposed  for  the  Irish 
was  not  in  accordance  with  the  true  spirit  of  the  nation,  so  emi- 
nently Catholic  and  religious  as  it  is.  Hence,  the  total  failure — 
for  such  it  is  now  admitted  by  all  to  have  been — of  that  system 
ought  to  have  opened  the  eyes  of  all  impartial  Englishmen  to  the 
necessity  of  starting  from  the  principle  that  Ireland  is  Catholic, 
and  that  the  Irish  are  true  children  of  the  Catholic  Church.  But 
this  fact  seems  not  yet  recognized  or  acknowledged  by  those  who 
rule  the  nation,  since,  at  this  very  moment,  a  bill  lies  before 
Parliament  against  which  all  the  bishops  of  Ireland  have  united 
in  raising  their  voice.  The  queen's  colleges  all  confess  to  be  a 
wretched  failure. 

The  injustice  of  centuries,  then,  is  not,  even  in  these  free 
days,  when  there  is  such  a  talk  about  educating  the  masses, 
repaired  by  the  English  Government ;  and  this  sad  fact  seems  to 
militate  against  the  power  of  moral  force.  However,  it  is  but 
right  to  remember  that  only  those  establishments  are  here  spoken 
of  which  are  supported  by  state  aid,  and  that  complete  freedom 
of  education,  independent  of  such  assistance,  does  actually  exist 
in  Ireland.  Have  not  the  bishops  all  necessary  power  to  open 
schools  of  their  own  ?  Have  they  not  even  founded  a  university  ? 
Does  the  state  dare  to  interfere  in  whatever  educational  establish- 
ments they  think  proper  to  set  on  foot  ?  They  are  now,  in  that 
regard,  as  free  as  the  Catholic  bishops  in  the  United  States ;  and 
if  the  degrees  granted  by  the  faculties  under  their  control  have 
no  value  in  the  eyes  of  the  state,  they  can  easily  dispense  with 
a  concurrence,  which  is  certainly  unjustly  denied,  but  which, 
even  if  granted,  would  not,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Church,  increase 
in  the  slightest  the  real  value  of  the  diplomas  they  themselves 
approve.  They  can  afford  to  wait  for  the  time  when  complete 
justice  will  be  done ;  meanwhile  they  are  freer  than  Catholic 
bishops  at  this  moment  are  in  all  Catholic  countries  of  Europe  ; 
and  the  freedom  they  enjoy  is  entirely  owing  to  that  moral  force 
which,  we  allege,  is  sufficient  to  insure,  sooner  or  later,  all  the 
advantages  that  can  be  desired.  When  the  present  situation  of 
the  native  Irish,  from  an  educational  point  of  view,  is  compared 
with  the  oppression  under  which  they  lay  a  hundred  years  ago, 
one  cannot  but  wonder  how  so  much  has  been  obtained,  and  the 
hope,  that  every  thing  still  wanting  is  sure  to  come  by  the  agency 
of  the  force  that  has  already  won  so  much,  cannot  be  deemed 
vain  and  illusory. 

Let  not,  however,  what  is  here  said  be  construed  as  advising 
Ireland  to  stand  still  while  schemes  of  education,  evidently  god- 
less, are  concocted,  matured,  and  passed  into  laws  for  their  special 
benefit.  On  the  contrary,  they  must  not  only  continue  but 
increase  their  efforts  to  cry  them  down,  till  they  compel  a  blind 


502 


MORAL  FORCE. 


and  deaf  government  to  open  its  eyes  and  ears  to  a  national  want 
and  a  national  voice.  This  is  what  is  meant  by  the  use  of  moral 
force. 

But,  can  the  complete  remedy  for  pauperism  and  the  solid 
establishment  and  endowment  oi  truly  Catholic  schools  be  ex- 
pected to  come  from  any  hands  but  those  of  an  Irish  Legisla- 
ture ?  Can  they  be  hoped  for  as  long  as  the  destiny  of  Ireland 
rests  in  the  hands  of  an  Imperial  Parliament  whose  great  major- 
ity can  have  no  real  sympathy  with  the  long-oppressed  race  ?  In 
a  word,  is  home-rule  necessary  to  bring  about  those  two  great 
measures,  which  seem  absolutely  indispensable  for  the  complete 
resurrection  of  the  nation  ? 

Our  readers  already  know  that,  in  our  opinion,  an  Irish  Par- 
liament would  not  be  a  sure  panacea  for  the  evils  of  the  country, 
particularly  those  of  pauperism  and  ignorance,  even  though  that 
Parliament  sat  in  Dublin,  and  was  composed  of  Irishmen  bred 
and  born.  The  evils  would  not  be  struck  out  promptly  and 
utterly,  although  many  great  improvements  would  immediately 
follow. 

Some  of  our  reasons  for  being  chary  of  confidence  in  the 
success  of  home-rule  have  been  already  given.  But  we  have 
also  insisted  on  the  necessity  of  leaving  the  question  open,  and 
admitted  that  Irishmen  have  a  right  to  discuss  it,  and  take 
whatever  side  they  may  think  proper,  provided  always  they 
stand,  as  they  are  standing,  within  the  limits  of  law  and  order. 

Surely,  the  Irish  have  a  right  to  be  fairly  represented  ;  mod- 
ern doctrines,  as  far  as  they  can  go,  consecrate  that  right ;  and, 
if  fair  representation  is  an  impossibility  in  the  present  state  of 
affairs  in  Ireland,  that  state  should  be  so  altered  as  that  the  Irish 
nation  might  obtain  all  the  advantages  which  a  truly  representa- 
tive government  bestows. 

It  is  clear  that  the  difficulty  consists  in  the  paramount  im- 
portance of  the  union — of  the  empire ;  and  this  is  not  the  place 
to  discuss  so  large  a  question.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  the 
union  of  the  British  Empire  does  not  and  cannot  consist  in  the 
absorption  into  one  whole  of  the  three  integral  parts  which  com- 
pose it.  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  are  still  three  distinct 
national  entities,  each  inhabited  by  a  peculiar  race,  and  each 
race  cannot,  in  such  a  political  organization,  be  in  justice  ignored, 
for  a  mere  abstraction  called  the  state. 

Certainly  the  question  is  a  very  complicated  one ;  and  to 
offer  a  dogmatic  solution  of  it  would  be  pretentious.  It  is  bet- 
ter to  leave  it  to  a  future  which  is  not  far  distant.  What  mav 
be  insisted  on  is,  that  moral  force  is  strong  enough  to  bring 
about  a  satisfactory  decision,  and  that  to  resort  to  revolution  for 
such  a  purpose  would  be  as  fatal  as  it  is  criminal. 

A  right  discussion  of  the  question  must  make  clear  the  fact 


MORAL  FORCE. 


503 


that  Ireland  is  entitled  to  fair  dealing  as  a  component  part  of  the 
empire.  Many  other  political  organizations  embraced  within 
the  vast  limits  of  the  British  power  are  allowed  to  discuss  ind 
decide  on  questions  peculiar  to  themselves,  and  which  they  are 
at  full  liberty  to  pronounce  upon  for  themselves  by  a  wise  adjust- 
ment and  concession  on  the  part  of  the  mother-country  as  ne^ 
sary  to  their  well-being.  Canada  is  almost  entirely  independent ; 
the  Australian  colonies  have  all  their  own  legislatures ;  it  is  the 
same  more  or  less  with  all  the  distant  dependencies  of  England, 
yet  there  have  been  no  complaints  heard  so  far  of  these  late  con- 
cessions threatening  the  union  of  the  Empire. 

But  the  objection  is  urged :  "  If  such  a  concession  be  made  to 
Ireland,  where  can  you  stop  ?  The  Scotch  may  ask  the  same, 
and  the  Welsh ;  one  has  as  much  right  to  home-rule  as  the 
other  ;  where  can  you  draw  the  line  ? " 

An  easy  answer  to  this  is,  that  the  Scotch  have  never  asked 
for  home-rule,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  they  never  had  to 
complain  of  unfair  treatment  at  the  hands  of  the  English  Govern- 
ment ;  their  special  wants  and  desires  having  been  always  duly 
considered  from  the  moment  of  their  union  with  England.  But 
the  union  of  Ireland  with  England  is  not  yet  a  century  old,  was 
brought  about  perforce,  and  by  chicanery  and  fraud,  and  from 
the  moment  of  its  enactment  to  the  present  has  been  loudly  pro- 
tested against  by  the  Irish  nation — the  nation,  that  is,  which  we 
have  followed  all  through,  joined  in  this  instance  by  numbers 
of  their  Protestant  fellow-countrymen.  A  long  list  of  pamphlets 
and  books  might  be  drawn  up,  as  showing  the  fact  that  mul- 
titudes of  Irish  writers,  not  of  a  revolutionary  but  of  a  truly 
conservative  character,  who  cannot  be  accused  of  disloyalty  to 
England,  have  deplored,  protested  against,  and  clamored  for  the 
repeal  of,  the  Union  of  1800. 

Such  is  not  the  case  with  Scotland.  But  suppose  it  were, 
and  proofs  furnished  showing  that  Scotland  is  not  fairly  repre- 
sented in  a  Parliament  which  meets  at  Westminster,  then  that 
country  would  have  just  as  much  right  to  see  itself  fairly  repre- 
sented, its  special  wants  satisfied  and  met,  as  all  the  other  branch- 
es of  the  great  British  organization. 

Certain  it  is  that  the  empire  cannot  be  sound  when  an  im- 
portant, a  vital  part  of  its  political  frame  is  incurably  sore.  Let 
that  sore  be  healed  by  justice,  large,  generous,  and  complete  ;  let 
Ireland  be  truly  and  really  represented,  in  whatever  manner  her 
representation  may  be  carried  out,  and  the  sudden  rise  of  the 
little  western  isle  in  wealth,  contentment,  true  prosperity,  and 
happiness,  will  redound  to  the  general  good  of  the  whole.  As  it 
now  stands,  its  still  miserable  condition  is  as  great  and  constant 
a  danger  to  Great  Britain  as  it  is  a  reproach  and  a  shame  upon 
the  maternal  government  which  suffers  the  child,  for  whose  pos- 


504 


MORAL  FORCE. 


session  it  would  stake  its  all,  to  continue  in  a  state  of  almost 
hopeless  poverty,  materially  and 
unaided  in  its  efforts  to  rise. 

If  home-rule  be  the  measure  which  is  to  heal  Ireland's 
wounds,  it  must  be  granted,  and  the  voice  of  reason  and  right 
must  rise  above  the  stupid  clamor  which  says  that  it  cannot, 
must  not,  shall  not  be  granted  !  Such  expressions  were  common 
in  inflammatory  pamphlets  which  flooded  the  country  on  the  eve 
of  Catholic  Emancipation,  in  1829  ;  and  possibly  manv  were 
issued  even  after  the  granting  of  this  (from  a  certain  English 
point  of  view)  suicidal  act  of  justice  to  Catholics. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  ultimate  issue  of  the  home-rule 
movement,  the  question  of  education,  which  is  so  closely  allied, 
to,  as  to  seem  dependent  on  it,  is  of  such  importance  that  it 
brooks  no  delay.  Ireland  is,  as  it  may  be  hoped  it  will  ever 
continue,  a  truly  Catholic  nation,  and  for  such  education  must  be 
special,  and  cannot  be  left  to  the  direction  of  a  non-Catholic 
state,  not  to  use  a  worse  expression.  The  result  of  the  so-called 
national  system,  as  exhibited  by  the  Queen's  Colleges  and  the 
rest,  ought  to  be  enough  to  open  the  eyes  of  real  statesmen. 
But  non-Catholic  legislators  need  a  sense  which  they  do  not 
possess,  to  appreciate  the  blunders  they  must  fall  into  when  pro- 
posing to  touch  such  delicate  interests  as  spiritual  things.  Thirty 
vears  ago,  when  those  Queen's  Colleges  and  schools  were  estab- 
lished in  Ireland,  the  Catholic  hierarchy  raised  up  their  voice  to 
warn  the  British  Government  against  so  rash  an  attempt ;  for 
the  very  few  who  appeared  willing  to  give  the  system  a  trial  had 
their  own  doubts  and  forebodings.  The  warning,  as  usual,  was 
not  heeded,  and  the  consequence  is,  that  the  partisans  of  the 
system  now  confess  that  their  darling  scheme  has  turned  out  a 
complete  failure.  Yet,  strange  to  say,  they  do  not  in  the  least 
seem  to  have  changed  their  ideas  on  the  subject.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  wish  to  secularize  education  more  completely  than 
ever,  and  to  extend  their  project  to  the  whole  British  Empire  ; 
though  at  this  moment  the  warning  comes  to  them  also  from  the 
Presbyterians  of  Scotland,  who  refuse  to  submit  to  the  scheme, 
universal  in  its  scope,  of  educating  the  young  according  to  state 
notions  and  worldly  ideas. 

In  this  the  British  Government  only  follows  the  lead  of  all 
European  cabinets  and  legislatures  ;  for  this  great  iniquity  is  not 
confined  to  the  British  Isles,  but  is  attempted  everywhere,  with 
the  evident  design  of  taking  the  government  of  souls  out  of  the 
hands  to  whicli  Jesus  Christ  confided  it — the  Church.  The 
Sovereign  Pontiff  was  compelled  to  protest,  and,  as  is  the  custom 
in  these  days,  his  protest  fell  unheeded.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  men,  who  call  themselves  Christians,  will  consent  to  see 
their  children  educated  by  secular  bodies,  which  are  not  only  void 


intellectually,  and  to  struggle 


MORAL  FORCE. 


505 


of  all  authority  over  the  souls  of  men,  but  imbued,  as  all  know, 
with  doctrines  the  most  pernicious  and  disorganizing.  The 
just  complaint  made  by  the  Irish  hierarchy  is  unfortunately  not 
restricted  to  their  own  body  ;  their  complaint  is  one  with  that  of 
all  the  rulers  of  the  Church  throughout  the  world.  It  seems  to 
us  that  there  is  greater  hope  of  establishing  a  thorough  Christian 
system  of  education  in  Ireland  than  in  any  other  country,  be- 
cause the  Irish  nation  will  always  take  a  more  determined  atti- 
tude,  and  gather  in  a  more  compact  and  united  body  around  her 
natural  leaders,  the  bishops  and  priests  of  God,  than  any  other 
modern  Catholic  nation  ;  and,  in  this  age,  where  there  are  una- 
nimity and  a  fixed  purpose  among  any  body  of  men,  they  can- 
not fail  to  result  in  a  victory  over  all  obstacles  and  opponents. 

Of  one  thing  England  may  be  sure,  that  the  Irish  bishops 
would  never  submit  to  the  project  now  on  foot  in  England,  as  to 
do  so  would  be  to  fail  in  their  most  sacred  duty ;  and  the  mass 
of  the  Irish  people  is  at  their  back.  The  Catholic  hierarchy  is 
always  ready  to  support  the  secular  power  so  long  as  that  power 
remains  within  its  province  and  does  not  step  out  of  it  to  encroach 
on  their  unquestionable  domain  ;  but,  when  duty  calls  on  them  to 
resist,  the  experience  of  centuries  is  before  the  world,  in  Ireland 
at  least,  to  show  how  far  they  can  carry  their  resistance.  In  this 
they  will  stand  united  as  one  man,  and  it  is  vain  for  the  English 
Government  to  flatter  itself  that  it  will  find  tools  among  them, 
should  it  foist  on  them  the  Birmingham  scheme. 

But  a  more  threatening  fact  still  is  the  compact  union  of  all 
Irishmen  in  support  of  their  bishops,  against  schemes  which  have 
already  excited  such  bitter  opposition  on  their  part,  and  on  which 
they  have  already  pronounced  and  given  their  solemn  verdict  in 
unmistakable  tones.  If  in  our  days  Irishmen  have  been  so  eager 
to  uphold  many  projects  of  a  doubtful  character,  because  those 
projects  were  opposed  to  England  ;  if  they  have  shown  in  the 
most  emphatic  manner  that  the  memory  of  the  past  is  still  fresh, 
and  that  they  are  not  yet  prepared  to  accept  the  British  Govern- 
ment as  a  friend  ;  if  they  have  seized  every  occasion,  the  most 
trifling  as  well  as  the  most  important,  to  show  that  the  union 
with  England  was  distasteful  to  them — what  will  be  their  atti- 
tude when  the  question  admits  of  no  doubt,  and  can  give  rise  to 
no  apprehension  in  a  Christian  conscience ;  when,  indeed,  they 
know  that  they  stand  where  their  duty  to  God  bids  them,  urged 
at  the  same  time  by  their  natural  feelings  of  opposition  to  a 
power  which  they  detest  and  to  which  they  are  irreconcilable  ? 
We  do  not  say  that  we  altogether  approve  of  their  dogged  oppo- 
sition to  England  ;  it  is  only  alluded  to  as  a  fact  which  it  would 
be  folly,  in  treating  of  questions  between  England  and  Ireland, 
tc  shut  one's  eyes  to  or  doubt. 

When  such  is  the  state  of  feeling,  how  can  a  scheme  of  god- 


506 


MORAL  FORCE. 


less  education  hope  to  succeed,  which,  after  all,  requires  the  con 
6ent  of  fathers  and  mothers  of  families  ?  It  is  only  natural  tc 
suppose  that  the  English  Government,  in  the  event  of  its  success, 
is  scarcely  prepared  to  employ  such  a  numerous,  watchful,  and 
determined  police  as  shall  march  the  children  off  to  school  every 
day  by  force — to  schools  which  to  them  would  be  prisons,  pre- 
sided over  by  jailers  in  the  shape  of  instructors.  Nevertheless, 
the  scheme  now  agitated  by  British  statesmen  must  culminate  in 
some  such  measure,  if  they  would  have  their  schools  attended ; 
and  the  inference  is  natural  that  education  viewed  from  such  a 
stand-point  becomes  a  design  criminal  and  oppressive  in  its  na- 
ture, as  well  as  a  sheer  impossibility  in  its  carrying  out.  Once 
again  the  whole  British  power  would  launch  itself  in  vain  against 
the  unyielding  rock  of  as  stubborn  a  will  as  ever  animated  hu- 
man beings,  as  durable  and  unshrinking  almost  as  the  inner  rock 
upon  which  it  is  built — Catholic  faith. 

Much  space  has  already  been  devoted  to  the  consideration  of 
what  are  here  considered  as  the  two  great  measures  necessary 
and  sufficient  for  the  complete  resurrection  of  the  Irish  race — 
the  lifting  of  the  load  of  pauperism  under  which  they  have  so 
long  labored,  and  the  establishment  among  them  of  a  sound  and 
thorough  Christian  education  ;  and  that  those  measures  will  un- 
doubtedly be  carried  without  any  attempt  at  social  convulsions, 
without  any  violation  of  law  and  order.  But,  as,  unfortunately, 
many  side-issues  have  been  raised  in  Ireland  of  very  inferior  im- 
portance, but  of  a  nature  almost  exclusively  to  engage  the  atten- 
tion of  Irishmen,  to  the  great  detriment  of  real  progress,  it  may 
be  well  to  dwell  a  little  longer  on  the  consequences  which  must 
infallibly  follow  from  a  higher  state  of  physical  comfort  and  men- 
tal culture  among  them  : 

L  A  higher  state  of  physical  comfort  will  naturally  produce 
a  stronger  attachment  to  their  native  soil  and  a  corresponding 
reluctance  to  leave  it,  as  they  now  do  by  wholesale  emigration. 
The  thought  has  been  dwelt  upon  that  emigration  was  a  design 
of  Divine  Providence,  and  even  the  first  step  in  the  resurrection 
of  the  nation  and  in  the  establishment  of  its  power  within  as  well 
as  without.  That  the  object  of  emigration  is  not  yet  fully  at- 
tained may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  it  still  continues  on  so 
large  a  scale ;  that  it  must  ultimately  dwindle  to  much  smaller 
proportions,  if  not  cease  utterly,  is  pretty  certain.  This  is  our 
wish  and  hope  ;  for  the  home  population  of  the  island  must  be 
large  enough  to  invest  it  with  deserved  imporiance  in  the  eyes 
of  foreigners.  Our  title-page  sets  forth  the  words  of  Dr.  New- 
man, expressive  of  the  firm  belief  that  the  time  will  come  when 
the  Catholic  population  of  Erin  will  be  as  thick  and  prosperous  as 
that  of  Belgium  %  Why  should  it  not  be  so  ?  Pauperism  alone 
prevents  it.  Let  their  existence  be  one  of  comfort — mere  comfort, 


MORAL  FORCE. 


507 


not  luxury — and  there  is  no  limit  to  the  increase  of  their  num- 
bers. In  such  an  event  Protestantism  would  contract  into  such 
narrow  limits  that  in  Ireland  it  would  become  a  thing  unknown  ; 
the  few  sectarians  still  abiding  there  would  themselves  share  in 
the  general  prosperity,  and  would  possibly  of  their  own  accord 
return  to  the  bosom  of  the  common  mother  of  Christians. 

The  question,  then,  of  increase  of  physical  comfort  for  Irish- 
men is  one  of  the  utmost  importance,  and,  as  the  tenure  of  land 
is  so  closely  connected  with  it,  not  to  this  question  is  the  term 
side-issue  applied.  The  land-question  should  be  thoroughly 
exhausted  until  the  true  solution,  the  real  measure,  which  has 
not  yet  appeared,  may  be  brought  to  the  surface  and  carried  out 
to  tne  full.  The  land-question  in  all  its  bearings  lies  beyond 
our  competence ;  not  so,  certain  reasons  for  believing  that  the 
possession  of  land  is  necessary  for  the  complete  restoration  of 
the  nation.  Manufactures  and  commercial  pursuits  are  of  sec- 
ondary importance  in  a  country  like  Ireland,  which  is  eminently 
agricultural.  This  should  not  be  taken  to  mean  that  such 
matters  are  to  be  neglected,  and  the  Irish  to  be  discouraged  in 
engaging  in  them,  particularly  in  their  home  manufactures  ;  nor 
in  calling  for  better  laws  to  help  them,  at  least  for  fair  dealing 
as  far  as  legislation  goes.  But  supposing  them  completely  inde- 
pendent and  masters  of  themselves ;  supposing  not  only  the 
repeal  of  the  Union,  but  even  the  separation  from  the  British 
organization  effected,  how  could  they  hope  to  compete  in  manu- 
facturing skill,  and  science,  with  the  inventive  genius  of  the 
American,  the  systematic  comprehensiveness  of  the  Englishman, 
or  the  artistic  taste  of  the  French  ?  Goods  are  manufactured 
for  the  markets  of  the  world,  and  the  Irish  are  not  yet  prepared 
for  such  extensive  enterprises ;  and,  taking  the  characteristics  of 
the  race  into  consideration,  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  will  ever 
be  successful  in  such  ventures. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  commerce.  When  are  they  likely 
to  have  a  navy  of  their  own  ?  They  are  still  Celts,  and  would 
it  be  well  for  them  to  cease  to  be  Celts  %  The  oceans  of  the 
globe  are  covered  with  ships  bearing  the  flags  of  many  nations. 
Suppose  them  to  unfurl  a  national  flag  to  the  breeze,  which  is 
saluted,  wherever  met,  by  the  crafts  of  other  civilized  nations, 
when  would  it  become  perceptible  among  the  crowded  fleets 
which  already  hold  possession  of  the  seas  %  The  broad  thorough- 
fares of  the  ocean  know  two  or  three  national  colors ;  all  the 
others  are  so  seldom  seen,  that  their  presence  or  absence  is  alike 
unnoticed  bv  the  world  at  large.  Among  these  would  the  Irish 
be  numbered,  if  they  engaged  in  commerce  on  their  own  account, 
and  sailed  no  longer  under  British  colors. 

It  is  for  them,  then,  to  turn  their  attention  to  the  land,  which 
is  their  chief  source  of  wealth.    Let  them  buy  it  up,  or  gain  it 


508 


MORAL  FORCE. 


by  long  leases,  inch  by  incli  and  acre  by  acre,  until  not  only  the 
bleak  bogs  and  wild  mountains  of  Connaught  are  again  their 
own,  but  the  rich  meadow-lands  and  smiling  wheat-fields  of 
Munster  and  Leinster.  Let  their  brethren  in  America  and 
Australia  associate  with  them  in  this,  and  thus  will  they  build 
up  again  a  true  Irish  yeomanry  and  nobility — for  nobility  has  a 
new  meaning  to-day — more  glorious,  perhaps,  than  the  old  one. 
Poverty  and  rags  will  give  place  to  prosperity  and  comfort,  even 
in  the  lowliest  cottages,  and  mirth  and  glee  will  be  heard  again 
in  the  country  from  which  they  have  so  long  been  banished. 

Is  such  a  picture  a  dream,  and  its  realization  an  impossi- 
bility ?  It  is  our  belief  that,  to  make  it  a  reality,  only  requires 
steadiness  of  purpose,  perseverance,  energy,  and  association. 
Fifty  years  ago  it  would  certainly  have  seemed  a  dream ;  but 
matters  have  advanced  within  the  last  half-century,  and  every 
thing  is  now  prepared  for  such  a  hoped-for  consummation. 

II.  Together  with  physical  comfort,  the  culture  produced 
by  a  sound  and  thorough  education  is  the  second  thing  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  resurrection  of  the  nation.  Education  has, 
at  all  times,  been  of  the  utmost  importance ;  in  our  age  it  is 
more  so  than  ever.  It  may  be  said  that,  in  the  opinion  of  man- 
kind, it  tends  more  and  more  to  replace  blood.  The  privileges 
that  once  belonged  to  rank  and  birth  are  now  everywhere  freely 
accorded  to  a  truly-educated  man.  And  here,  wealth,  whicn 
is  almost  worshipped  by  many,  cannot  altogether  take  the  place 
of  education.  Consequently,  a  great  effort  should  be  made  in 
Ireland  to  raise  the  standard  of  the  intellectual  scale  of  society. 
Owing  to  former  tyranny  and  oppression,  the  rising  must  begin 
at  the  lowest  grade.  But  the  first  impulse  has  already  been  given 
by  the  Church  of  God,  and  that  impulse  must  continue  and 
increase  with  a  constantly-accelerated  force. 

Unfortunately,  a  false  direction  has  been  given  it  by  the  state. 
The  means  which  will  surely  defeat  this  action  of  the  state  have 
been  seen.  Nevertheless,  it  works  mischievously  for  the  general 
result ;  and  the  money  paid  by  the  nation  has  been  and  still  is 
squandered  for  a  most  unholy  purpose,  when,  if  properly  applied, 
it  would  be  so  fruitful  of  good. 

Should  the  government  persevere  in  its  project,  one  course 
only  lies  open  before  all  true  Irishmen  ;  and  that  is,  to  ignore 
the  action  of  the  government,  and  follow  a  plan  of  their  own. 
They  have  only  to  do  what  the  Catholics  in  France  would  most 
willingly  do  if  the  state  allowed  them ;  what  Catholics  in  the 
United  States  have  been  doing  for  some  time,  and  will  have  to 
do  for  some  time  longer — not  murmur  too  loudly  at  the  taxes 
paid  by  them  for  educational  purposes  and  used  so  lavishly  by 
the  state  without  any  profit  to  them  ;  but  with  steady  purpose 
raise  funds  which  the  state  cannot  touch,  devoted  to  an  object 


MORAL  FORCE. 


509 


with  which  the  state  cannot  interfere,  namely,  the  solid  Christian 
education  of  their  children  under  the  eyes  and  chief  control  of 
the  Church,  with  competent  and  truly  religious  masters. 

Let  them  reflect  that  until  recently  education  in  Christian 
countries  was  always  imparted  by  the  Church  of  Christ,  and 
that  its  secularization  is  but  a  work  of  yesterday ;  that  the  effect 
of  that  secularization  is  manifest  enough  in  the  mental  anarchy 
which  grows  more  prevalent  in  Europe  every  day ;  that  the  na- 
tion which  comes  back  to  the  old  system,  and  places  again  the 
care  of  youth  in  the  hands  of  religious  teachers,  is  sure  to  obtain 
a  far  sounder  and  more  effective  education  than  those  who  take 
for  teachers  of  their  children  men  void  of  faith  and  remarkable 
only  for  a  false  and  superficial  polish,  which  sooner  or  later  will 
be  reckoned  by  all  at  its  true  value,  and  meet  only  with  well- 
merited  neglect  and  contempt. 

No  one  will  deny  that  moral  training,  the  first  and  most  im- 
portant part  of  education,  is  far  surer  and  safer  in  the  care  of 
religious  teachers  than  in  that  of  mere  laymen,  whose  morality 
is  often  doubtful,  and  whose  reputation  is  not  of  the  best.  With 
regard  to  scientific  teaching,  the  mind  of  the  religious  is  not,  to 
say  the  least,  lowered  by  the  holy  obligations  which  he  has  con- 
tracted :  and  it  is  an  awkward  fact  for  those  who  in  a  breath  up- 
hold secular  education  and  abuse  the  religious,  that  in  former 
ages  the  men  who  excelled  in  arts  and  sciences,  the  geniuses 
whose  works  will  live  as  long  as  the  earth,  were  either  them- 
selves monks  or  the  pupils  of  monks.  A  list  of  them  would  fill 
many  pages,  and  their  names  are  not  unknown  to  the  world. 

for  the  mass  of  the  people,  the  common  level  of  primary 
education  with  which  so  many  are  now  satisfied  may  at  least  be 
as  satisfactory  in  its  results  when  imparted  by  religious,  male 
and  female,  as  when  under  the  direction  of  young  men  and 
women  who  have  received  every  possible  diploma  which  is  at 
the  disposal  of  school  commissioners  or  boards  of  gentlemen 
invested  with  an  office,  worthy  of  the  gravest  attention,  but  to 
which  they  can  devote  but  very  little  time. 

But  the  subject  may  be  said  to  have  passed  beyond  discussion. 
The  true  and  authorized  leaders  of  the  Irish  in  such  matters,  the 
Catholic  bishops,  have  already  taken  the  matter  into  their  own 
hands  ;  and  in  a  very  short  time  have  covered  the  island  with 
their  schools,  with  every  prospect  of  a  university.  It  rests  with  the 
government  to  give  or  refuse  its  aid  in  imparting  a  true  national 
education  to  a  nation  which  is  Catholic ;  but,  with  or  without 
this  aid,  the  Irish  will  have  the  means  of  educating  their  chil- 
dren rightly  ;  and  the  culture  they  receive  will  favorably  com- 
pare with  that  imparted  by  rival  establishments  fostered  by  the 
state,  whose  pupils  will  not  know  a  word  even  of  their  own  na- 
tional history,  since,  in  the  authorized  books,  Ireland  has  no  exist- 


510 


MORAL  FORCE. 


ence  other  than  that  of  an  unworthy  subject  of  the  great  British 
Empire. 

It  was  necessary  to  give  prominence  to  what  is  here  consid- 
ered as  the  most  effective  means  of  bringing  about  the  great 
result  which  engages  our  attention  in  this  chapter.  There  are 
secondary  objects  which  might  be  treated,  but  which,  in  the  final 
working  of  the  divine  will,  may  be  insignificant.  For,  to  repeat 
what  has  been  said  before,  the  restoration  of  the  nation  which 
is  now  progressing  so  steadily  almost  unaided  by  any  action  of 
man,  however  much  he  may  indulge  in  agitation,  is  the  work  of 
God,  and  before  long  will  so  manifest  itself  to  all.  Meanwhile 
it  is  enough  to  assert  in  general  terms  that  Ireland  is  entitled  to 
all  those  things  which  render  a  people  happy  and  contented. 
That  wished-for  state  is  not  far  off;  let  them  continue  to  be  ac- 
tive in  its  pursuit.  A  previous  chapter  has  already  touched  upon 
the  great  means  to  be  employed  in  bringing  this  about :  associa- 
tion, whose  centre  should  be  Ireland,  and  whose  branches  should 
spread  wherever  Irishmen  have  established  themselves ;  whose 
guides  should  be  the  clergy,  but  its  chief  workers,  intelligent 
and  energetic  laymen.  On  this  point  it  is  desirable  particularly 
to  be  rightly  understood ;  it  is  not  our  purpose  to  say  that  in 
such  a  work  laymen  ought  not  to  cooperate,  or  even  to  lead ; 
with  the  memory  of  O'Connell  before  us,  such  a  thing  would  be 
impossible ;  on  the  contrary,  the  external  working  of  the  whole 
scheme  should  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  good,  active,  and  intel- 
ligent laymen.  They  are  the  proper  instruments  for  carrying 
on  such  a  work  actively  and  efficaciously ;  they  form,  at  least  nu- 
merically, the  principal  part  of  the  moral  power  of  the  nation, 
and  that  power  should  be  developed  on  a  larger  scale  than  it  has 
ever  yet  been.  But  the  first  impulse  should  be  given  by  the 
moral  leaders,  rulers  of  the  Church.  Let  the  nation  work  under 
the  guidance,  the  leadership  of  the  men  who  alone  stood  by 
them  when  all  else  had  been  lost,  who,  in  fact,  by  preserving 
their  religion,  preserved  to  them  their  nationality ;  let  them  work 
under  their  eyes  and  with  their  sanction,  and  assuredly  their 
labor  will  not  be  labor  in  vain. 

What  will  the  final  result  be  of  such  a  cooperation  of  work- 
ers? The  formation  or  rather  consolidation  of  a  truly  Chris- 
tian and  Catholic  people ;  a  most  remarkable  phenomenon  in 
this  wonderful  nineteenth  century !  It  would  seem  that  they 
have  thus  far  been  deprived  of  a  government  of  their  own  only 
to  win  a  government  at  last  which  shall  be,  what  is  so  sadly 
wanted  in  these  days,  Christian  and  Catholic.  Modern  govern- 
ments have  broken  loose  from  Christianity  ;  they  have  declared 
themselves  independent  of  all  moral  restraint ;  they  have  pro- 
nounced themselves  supreme,  each  in  its  own  way ;  and,  to  be 
consistent,  they  have  become  godless.  Donoso  Cortes  has  shown 


MORAL  FORCE. 


511 


this  admirably  in  his  work  on  "  Catholicism,  Liberalism,  and 
Socialism."  The  sad  spectacle  which  in  our  age  meets  the  eye 
of  the  Christian,  is  universal ;  there  is  no  longer  a  Catholic  na- 
tion ;  Christendom  has  ceased  to  exist.  This  is  held  by  the 
statesmen  of  to-day  to  be  a  vast  improvement  on  the  old  social 
system.  Mediaeval  barbarism,  as  they  term  it,  has,  according  to 
them,  met  with  just  condemnation ;  and  to  return  to  it  now, 
would  be  to  drag  an  advanced  age  centuries  backward,  a  horror 
which  no  sane  man  could  contemplate. 

Undoubtedly  there  were  many  abuses  under  the  old  regime, 
which  the  most  sincere  Christian  regrets,  and  could  not  wish  to 
see  restored,  or  again  attempted.  But,  its  great  feature,  the 
inner  link  which  bound  the  system  together,  its  unity  under  the 
guidance  of  the  universal  Church,  was  the  only  safeguard  for  the 
general  happiness  of  mankind.  This  admirable  unity  has  been 
broken  into  fragments ;  each  part  does  for  itself,  and  thus  the 
world  lies  at  the  mercy  of  Might,  and  each  nation  goes  about 
like  "  a  strong  man  armed,  keeping  his  house." 

Even  Heeren,  a  writer  who  is  strongly  Protestant  and  liberal, 
is  driven  to  confess  in  his  "  History  of  the  Political  System  of 
Europe,"  that  the  reign  of  Frederick  the  Great,  in  Prussia,  was 
"  immediately  followed  by  those  great  convulsions  in  states, 
which  gave  the  ensuing  period  a  character  so  different  from  the 
former.  The  contemporary  world,  which  lived  in  it,  calls  it  the 
revolutionary ;  but  it  is  yet  too  early  to  decide  by  what  name  it 
will  be  denoted  by  posterity,  after  the  lapse  of  a  century." 

After  a  brief  review  of  the  various  states  as  they  existed 
toward  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  he  adds  :  "  The  efforts  of 
the  rulers  to  obtain  unlimited  power  had  overthrown  the  old 
national  freedom  in  all  the  states  of  the  Continent ;  the  assem- 
blies of  the  states  had  disappeared,  or  were  reduced  to  mere 
forms ;  nowhere  had  they  been  modelled  into  a  true  national 
representation." 

He  does  not  see  that,  in  order  to  obtain  that  "  unlimited 
power,"  the  rulers  had  thrown  off  the  yoke  of  Church  authority 
everywhere,  and  that  Christendom  disappeared  with  the  "  old 
national  freedom"  as  soon  as  the  key-stone  of  the  edifice,  the 
papacy,  was  ejected  from  its  place. 

Nevertheless,  he  was  keen  enough  to  perceive  it  necessary  to 
call  in  armed  force  to  uphold  that  usurped  power  of  rulers  : 

"  For  the  strength  of  the  states  no  other  criterion  was  known 
than  standing  armies.  And,  in  reality,  there  was  scarcely  any 
other.  By  the  perfection  which  they  had  attained,  and  which 
kept  pace  almost  with  the  growing  power  of  the  princes,  the  line 
of  partition  was  gradually  drawn  between  them  and  the  nations; 
they  only  were  armed ;  the  nations  were  defenceless." 

This  great  German  historian  carries  his  views  further  still, 


512 


MORAL  FORCE. 


and  confesses  that,  "  if  the  political  supports  were  in  a  tottering 
condition,  the  moral  were  no  less  shattered.  The  comer-stone 
of  every  political  system,  the  sanctity  of  legitimate  possession, 
without  which  there  would  be  only  one  war  of  all  against  all, 
was  gone ;  politicians  had  already  thrown  off  the  mask  in  Poland ; 
the  lust  of  aggrandizement  had  prevailed.  .  .  .  The  indissoluble 
bond  connecting  morals  and  politics  being  broken,  the  result  was 
to  make  egotism  the  prevailing  principle  of  public  as  well  as 
private  life." 

Admirable  reflections,  doubtless,  but  incomplete ;  the  Prot- 
estantism of  the  writer  not  allowing  him  to  perceive  that,  the 
only  sure  defender  of  morality  having  been  discarded,  egotism 
could  not  but  prevail.  Therefore  does  he  complain,  being  blind 
to  the  true  cause  of  the  disorder,  that  "  democratic  ideas,  trans- 
ported from  America  to  Europe,  were  spread  and  cherished  in 
the  midst  of  the  monarchical  system — ready  materials  for  a 
conflagration  far  more  formidable  than  their  authors  had  antici- 
pated, should  a  burning  spark  unhappily  light  upon  them. 
Others  had  already  taken  care  to  profane  the  religion  of  the 
people;  and  what  remains  sacred  to  the  people  when  religion 
and  constitution  are  profaned?" 

This  last  observation,  thrown  in  at  the  end  of  some  very 
sound  considerations,  would  have  made  them  far  more  striking, 
had  it  appeared  at  their  head  as  the  great  source  of  all  the  catas- 
trophes which  ensued.  But  it  requires  a  Catholic  eye  to  take  in 
the  whole  truth,  and  a  Catholic  tongue  to  give  the  right  explana- 
tion of  history,  as  of  all  things  else. 

Many  reflections  similar  to  those  above  quoted  have  been 
made  by  non-Catholic  writers,  and  the  defenders  of  the  Church 
have  spoken  with  clearness  and  energy  throughout.  Neverthe- 
less, the  evil  has  continued  to  grow  more  universal  and  more 
alarming,  until,  to-day,  no  principle  on  which  the  social  fabric 
can  securely  stand  is  acknowledged  by  those  who  rule  the  exterior 
world.  And  of  what  Heeren  calls  the  violation  of  "  the  sanctity 
of  legitimate  possession,"  let  Poland  and  many  other  states 
speak,  nay,  those  of  the  Father  of  the  faithful  himself,  to  whose 
warning  voice  rulers  have  now  so  long  persistently  turned  a 
deaf  ear.  Where  are  now  even  the  fragments  of  that  "  corner- 
stone" of  the  old  "political  system?" 

Such  is  the  state  of  affairs,  not  only  in  Europe,  but  generally 
throughout  the  world,  so  that  the  Catholic  Church  has  at  length 
entered  fully  upon  that  stage  of  her  existence  when  she  possesses 
individual  subjects  full  of  tender  affection  and  devotedness, 
whose  number,  thank  God !  increases  every  day,  but  not  a  single 
State  which  acknowledges  her  as  its  director  and  teacher. 

Ireland  may  be  destined  to  become  the  first  one  which  shall 
acknowledge  her,  and  set  an  example  to  the  rest.    If  ever  she 


MORAL  FORCE. 


513 


enjoys  self-government,  she  will  surely  do  so,  for  Catholic  she  is 
to  the  core,  and  Catholic  she  cannot  but  remain. 

When  it  was  said  that  home-rule  would  not  serve  as  a  sure 
panacea  for  all  her  evils,  it  will  be  understood  as  applying  to  the 
actual  moment  and  nothing  else.  That  it  would  not  be  a  good 
thing  for  her  ever  to  enjoy  real  self-government  was  never  in 
our  mind.  Moral  force  is  bringing  this  nearer  to  her ;  and  step 
by  step  she  is  learning  how  to  walk  without  support.  Already, 
she  possesses  something  of  political  franchise,  and  enjoys  muni- 
cipal government  more  truly  than  Frenchmen  do  after  all  their 
social  convulsions. 

There  are  men,  Irishmen  even,  who  pretend  that  she  would 
subside  into  anarchy  if  her  destiny  were  confided  to  her  own 
care.  They  point  to  the  constant  wranglings  which  have  been 
her  bane  for  centuries,  and  the  "prophet"  who  wrote  the 
"  Battle  of  Dorking"  represents  her,  as  soon  as  the  humiliation 
of  England  left  her  free,  struggling  painfully  in  the  throes  of 
anarchy.  That  this  general  opinion  of  men  with  regard  to  Ire- 
land is  but  too  true,  was  conceded  in  another  place,  yet  only 
60  far  as  concerned  interests  which  were  trifling,  or,  at  best,  of  no 
high  character ;  that  when  the  object  at  stake  is  one  of  great 
importance,  there  was  more  steadiness,  unanimity,  energy,  and 
true  heroism  in  the  Irish  people,  than  in  any  other  known  to 
history  in  modern  times.  And  this  reflection  is  certainly  borne 
out  by  the  issues  of  all  the  secular  struggles  of  the  Irish  with 
Scandinavianism,  feudalism,  and  Protestantism. 

Surely  is  there  in  them  the  right  material  for  a  nation  ;  and, 
when  the  day  comes  for  the  country  to  take  in  hand,  under 
Providence,  her  own  destiny  and  work  it  out,  the  "  prophet " 
will  find  himself  sadly  mistaken  when,  freed  forever  from  the 
degradation  of  pauperism,  she  is  at  liberty  to  raise  her  thoughts 
above  food  and  raiment;  when  her  children,  lifted  by  a  solid 
Christian  education  to  the  high  level  of  intellectual  foresight, 
shall  be  able  to  discuss  the  great  objects  of  their  national  in- 
terests, with  no  question  of  clan  and  clan  ;  then  wrangling  will 
cease,  as  far  as  public  questions  are  concerned,  and  be  merely 
left  to  matters  of  minor  importance,  or  private  affairs,  as  with 
all  other  nations.  But  that  concentrated  energy  which  has 
marked  the  race  throughout  that  long  fight  of  centuries  against 
such  overwhelming  odds,  will  still  continue  as  their  distin- 
guishing characteristic,  but  turned  now  to  the  question  of  their 
own  national  welfare,  and  no  longer  to  the  aversion  of  doom 

Then  will  Europe  see  what  a  truly  Christian  people  is,  for 
then  there  will  be  no  other  left ;  and  the  superiority  of  principles, 
of  strength  of  mind,  energy  of  character,  naturally  fostered  by 
deep  religious  convictions,  will  afford  another  proof  of  Montes- 
quieu's reflection,  that  "  the  Christian  faith,  which  seems  to  have 
33 


5U 


MORAL  FORCE. 


for  its  object  only  the  future  life,  is  likewise  the  best  calculated 
to  make  people  happy  and  prosperous  during  this." 

If  ever  men  are  brought  to  acknowledge  the  fatal  error  they 
made  in  rejecting  the  sacred  safeguard  which  Christ  left  them 
in  his  Church,  it  will  be  by  looking  on  the  example  of  a  nation 
actually  existing,  governed  by  the  great  principles  which  alone 
can  insure  the  happiness  of  the  individual  and  the  prosperity  of 
the  whole  people. 

In  all  the  foregoing  considerations  Ireland  has  been  looked 
upon  as  a  nation  full  of  vigor  and  energy  ;  but,  as  this  vital  point 
is  denied  by  some,  who  bear  the  reputation  of  thoughtful 
writers,  it  is  well  to  establish  it  clearly  before  our  minds. 

Is  Ireland  a  nation  ?  Some  say,  IN  o  ;  others,  among  them  Mr. 
Froude,  say  she  is  divided  into  two  nations. 

The  first  of  these  assertions,  that  she  is  not  a  nation,  is  in 
appearance  so  self-evident  and  true  that  it  seems  tolly  to  deny  it. 
She  has  no  government  of  her  own  ;  her  destinies  seem  to  be 
altogether  in  the  hands  of  a  hostile  race,  which  rules  her  by  a 
Parliament,  where  her  voice  is  scarcely  heard.  She  has  no  army 
nor  navy,  no  commerce,  no  treasury,  not  the  lowest  prerogative 
of  sovereignty.  There  is  a  green  flag  still  somewhere  with  a 
harp  on  it  and  a  crown  above  the  harp,  reserved  for  state  occa- 
sions, and  unfurled  now  and  again,  when  a  show  of  loyalty  and 
a  little  enthusiasm  is  called  for  ;  but  that  flag  never  waves  the 
Irish  to  battle,  not  even  when  fighting  for  England.  There  is 
no  Irish  standard-bearer  for  it,  as  there  was  under  the  Tudors, 
when  the  flag  of  Ulster  was  seen  amid  the  armies  of  Elizabeth. 
The  name  of  Ireland  is  never  mentioned  in  any  treaty  with 
foreign  powers  ;  and,  when  the  sovereign  of  England,  Scotland, 
and  Ireland,  signs  a  treaty,  a  convention,  nay,  a  poor  protocol, 
with  any  foreign  state,  the  name  of  Ireland  is  not  to  be  seen  on 
the  parchment,  save  at  its  head,  among  the  titles  of  the  monarch. 
There  is  no  Irish  seal  even  to  affix  to  the  document :  the  country 
is  a  national  non-entity. 

But  other  men,  and  wise  men  too,  discover  a  strange  anomaly 
in  this  curious  countrv.  They  hold  that  it  is  composed  of  two 
distinct  nations,  and  furnish  excellent  reasons  in  support  of  their 
theory. 

They  talk  in  this  fashion :  "  Look  at  the  people  ;  travel  the 
countrv  north  and  south,  and  converse  with  them  as  you  go. 
What  do  you  find  %  Unity  of  feeling,  aims,  agreement  of  opin- 
ion on  all  possible  subjects  ?  Just  the  opposite  !  You  find  Ja- 
cob and  Esau  on  every  side  struggling  in  the  womb  of  their 
mother.  The  quarrel  between  Sassenach  and  Gael  still  goes  on. 
What  two  figures  can  be  found  more  antagonistic  than  the 
Orangeman  of  Ulster  and  the  Milesian  of  Connaught  ?  Yet  they 
are  both  children  of  the  same  country." 


MORAL  FORCE. 


515 


And  so  deep-grained  is  the  difference  between  them  that,  al- 
though they  have  lived  side  by  side  for  centuries,  they  are  still 
as  hostile  to  each  other  as  when  they  first  met  in  battle  array. 
The  Danes,  after  a  struggle  of  a  little  more  than  two  centuries, 
gave  up  the  contest  and  became  Celts.  Strongbow's  Normans 
soon  adopted  the  manners  of  the  old  inhabitants,  intermarried 
with  them,  and,  after  a  lapse  of  four  centuries,  though  quarrels 
often  broke  out  between  the  one  and  the  other,  they  were  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  Celts,  the  old  race,  as  it  were,  absorbing 
the  Norman  blood,  and  always  showing  itself  in  the  children. 

But,  when  will  the  children  of  James's  Scotchmen  or  Crom- 
well's Covenanters  coalesce  with  the  descendants  of  the  Mile- 
sians ?  The  longer  they  dwell  together,  the  farther  they  seem 
apart,  the  more  they  seem  to  hate  each  other ;  and  every  12th 
of  July,  5th  of  November,  17th  of  March,  or  even  15th  of  Au- 
gust, brings  danger  of  bloodshed  and  strife  to  every  city,  ham- 
let, and  town.  Surely,  this  fact  speaks  of  two  nations  in  the 
country. 

The  question  here  presented  is  indeed  a  complicated  one, 
requiring  solid  distinctions  in  order  to  elucidate  it ;  and,  strange 
to  say,  this  last  difficulty  of  the  presence  of  two  nations  in  Ire- 
land offers  greater  obstacles  to  the  firm  establishment  of  our 
opinion  than  the  first  assertion,  so  clear  and  undeniable  in  ap- 
pearance, that  there  is  no  Irish  nation  ! 

If  true  nationality  existed  only  in  the  externals  of  govern- 
ment, in  an  army,  navy,  commerce,  a  public  seal  and  flag,  and 
recognition  by  foreign  powers,  further  discussion  would  clearly 
be  useless,  and  the  subject  might  as  well  at  once  be  dropped. 

But  the  true  idea  of  a  nation  embraces  much  more  than  this  ; 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  national  soul,  and  all  the  array  of  acci- 
dents alluded  to  above  constitute  only  the  body,  or,  more  truly, 
the  surroundings.  As  a  writer  in  the  North  American  Review 
(vol.  cxv.,  p.  379)  has  well  expressed  it,  a  nation  is  "  a  race  of 
men,  small  or  great,  whom  community  of  traditions  and  feeling 
binds  together  into  a  firm,  indestructible  unity,  and  whose  love 
of  the  same  past  directs  their  hopes  and  fears  to  the  same  fu- 
ture." 

In  this  sense  nationality  assuredly  belongs  to  Ireland.  More, 
perhaps,  than  among  any  other  people  on  earth,  is  there  for  the 
great  bulk  of  them  "  community  of  traditions  and  feeling," 
binding  them  together  into  "  a  firm  and  indestructible  unity  ;  " 
and  who  shall  say  that  they  feel  no  love  for  their  past,  because 
that  past  has  been  clouded  with  sorrow  ?  Nay,  this  fact  makes 
the  past  dearer,  and  tends  all  the  more  to  direct  their  hopes  and 
fears  to  the  same  future  ;  a  future,  indeed,  still  dim  and  uncer- 
tain, and  not  to  be  named  with  perfect  certainty,  but  wrapped 
in  mists  like  the  morning ;  yet  the  faint  flush  of  the  dawn  is 


516 


MORAL  FORCE. 


already  there  that  shall  pale  and  die  away  when  the  full  orb  of 

the  sun  appears. 

The  reader  may  remember  what  was  said  of  the  unanimity 
so  striking  in  all  Irishmen,  wherever  they  may  be  found  ;  that, 
though  private  disputes  may  be  taken  up  among  them  with  such 
ardor  that  their  quarrels  have  become  proverbial,  when  the 
question  refers  to  their  country  or  their  God,  in  a  moment  they 
are  united,  suddenly  transformed  into  steady  friends,  ready  to 
shed  their  blood  side  by  side  for  the  great  objects  which  entirely 
absorb  their  natures. 

This  feeling  it  is  which  forms  the  soul  of  a  nation.  Wher- 
ever this  is  to  be  found,  there  is  an  indestructible  nationality ; 
wherever  it  is  absent,  there  is  only  a  dead  body,  however  strong 
may  seem  its  government,  however  vast  its  armies,  however  high 
its  so-called  culture  and  refinement. 

These  reflections  being  kept  in  view,  judicious  men  will 
agree  that,  among  Europeans  at  least,  there  is  scarcely  any  other 
nationality  so  strong  and  vigorous  as  the  Irish.  Their  tradi- 
tional feeling  keeps  their  past  ever  present  to  their  eyes  ;  their 
ardent  nature  hopes  ever  against  hope ;  misfortunes  which  would 
utterly  break  down  and  dishearten  any  other  people,  leave  them 
still  full  of  bright  anticipations,  and,  as  they  seem  to  weep  over 
the  cold  body  of  a  dear  mother — Erin,  their  country — they  think 
only  of  her  resurrection. 

But  are  there  not  two  nations  among  them — two  nations 
radically  opposed  to  each  other  and  incapable  of  coalescing  ? 
Supposing  a  resurrection  of  the  people,  which  of  the  two  is  to 
prevail — the  numerical  majority,  or  the  so  far  influential  mi- 
nority ?  In  either  event,  it  is  fair  to  suppose  a  new  state  of 
helotism  for  the  one  party  or  the  other.  Is  this  the  spectacle 
which  the  regenerated  nation  is  likely  to  present  ? 

In  speaking  of  the  resurrection  of  Ireland,  the  old,  massive, 
compact  body  of  the  people,  the  venerable  race,  Celtic  in  its 
aspirations  and  tendencies,  if  not  altogether  in  its  origin,  has 
always  been  kept  in  view  ;  and  that  anomalous,  foreign  excres- 
cence which  has  so  steadily  refused  to  assimilate  with  the  mass, 
and  has  until  our  days  remained  "  encamped  "  in  Ireland,  as  the 
Turks  are  justly  said  to  have  remained  "  encamped  "  in  Europe, 
has  never  entered  into  our  reckoning. 

The  true  Irishman  has  ever  been  catholic — the  word  is  used 
in  its  grammatical  and  not  in  its  religious  sense — in  fellowship. 
The  race,  as  now  constituted,  is  assuredly  of  mixed  origin,  and 
large  drafts  of  foreign  population  have  been  added  from  time  to 
time  to  the  primitive  stock,  which  has  always  been  kind  to  admit, 
absorb,  and  make  them  finally  Celtic.  Strongbow's  Xormans 
were  not  the  last  who  submitted  to  that  process ;  as  was  seen, 
many  Cromwellians  becames  the  fathers,  or  grandfathers  at  least, 


MORAL  FORCE. 


517 


of  as  sturdy  an  Irish  branch  as  ever  flourished  in  the  strong  air 
of  the  country. 

But  a  comparatively  small  body  of  men  has  doggedly  refused 
to  submit  to  this  process,  and  continued  to  this  day  an  English 
or  Lowland  Scotch  colony  on  the  Irish  soil.  The  future  of  Ire- 
land does  not  take  them  in,  for  the  very  simple  reason  that  they 
are  not  of  her,  they  do  not  belong  to  her,  they  are  as  much  for- 
eigners to-day  as  they  ever  were.  Therefore  do  we  admit  the 
existence  of  two  nations,  if  people  are  pleased  to  call  them  so,  in 
Ireland,  but  of  one  nation  only  have  we  written.  The  only  ques- 
tion in  regard  to  this  second  "nation"  is :  What  will  become  of 
them  in  the  future  ?  Are  they,  in  their  turn,  to  become  helots, 
after  having  vainly  striven  so  long  to  make  helots  of  the  others  ? 
God  forbid !  No  true  Irishman  nourishes  in  his  soul  such  feel- 
ings of  retaliation  or  revenue. 

Assuredly,  they  will  be  prevented  from  disturbing  any  longer 
the  public  order,  and  forced  at  length  to  respect  the  majority,  or 
rather,  the  mass  of  their  countrymen.  No  one  can  object  to 
having  such  a  necessary  measure  imposed  upon  them.  In  the 
many  civil  discords  which,  for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half, 
have  disgraced  the  north  of  Ireland,  they  have  almost  invariably 
been  the  aggressors.  The  government  openly  taking  their  part 
for  a  long  time,  they  had  the  whole  field  to  themselves,  and  what 
use  they  made  of  their  privilege,  and  how  they  improved  their 
opportunity,  is  known  to  all.  When,  at  last,  the  public  author- 
ities could  no  longer  pretend  to  ignore  their  hateful  spirit,  and 
began  to  show  some  signs  of  protecting  the  hitherto  much-abused 
majority,  by  forbidding  those  odious  processions  to  which  the 
others  always-  attached  such  importance,  they  gave  themselves 
the  airs  of  a  persecuted  body  of  men,  and  pretended  that  hence- 
forth their  lives,  and  those  of  their  wives  and  children,  were  no 
longer  safe. 

The  province  of  Ulster  being  closed  to  them  as  a  field  of 
operations,  they  transferred  to  Upper  Canada  the  exhibition  of 
their  blood-thirsty  hatred,  and  on  several  occasions  the  Catholic 
opulation  of  the  country  had  to  protect  their  churches,  mus- 
et  in  hand.  Even  in  the  United  States  they  have  rendered 
themselves  odious  to  the  people  by  foisting  their  spirit  of  strife 
on  a  land  where  they  cannot  but  be  strangers,  and  by  staining 
some  of  the  streets  of  New  York  with  blood,  in  order  to  gratify 
their  senseless  animosity. 

It  is  surely  time  that  an  end  be  put  to  such  absurd  and  dan- 
gerous antics,  not  abroad  only,  but  at  home.  In  the  new  order 
of  things  now  dawning  upon  Ireland,  there  can  no  longer  be 
room  for  them  ;  and  the  very  name  of  Orangeman  must  disap- 
pear forever  from  the  vocabulary  of  the  new  nation,  to  the  joy 
of  all  peaceful  and  law-abiding  citizens. 


518 


MORAL  FORCE. 


That  is  all  the  persecution  they  need  expect.  Not  only  will 
there  be  room  for  them  still  in  the  country  of  their  birth,  but  of 
course  they  will  have  their  due  share  in  all  the  privileges  of  citi- 
zenship. Political  distinctions  between  themselves  and  the  old 
race  will  be  unknown  ;  social  distinctions  will  be  a  question  for 
themselves  to  settle.  Should  they  show  the  slightest  desire  of 
combining  with  the  majority  of  their  countrymen,  these  latter 
will  be  generous  enough  to  forget  the  past,  and  perhaps  the 
others  may  imitate  their  predecessors,  the  Danes,  the  Normans, 
and  even  some  of  their  Cromwellian  kin,  and  become,  at  last, 
Hibernis  hibemiores. 

What  is  said  of  political  and  social  distinctions  will  hold  good 
also  for  religious  tenets.  Let  them,  if  they  choose,  continue  to 
stand  by  their  Presbyterian  dogmas,  provided  they  do  not  quar- 
rel with  the  majority  for  professing  what  they  love  to  believe ; 
but  that  belief  must  come  to  an  external  and  public  profession. 
They  will  often  hear  the  bells  of  Catholic  churches ;  as  they  pass 
outside,  if  they  do  not  enter,  the  strains  of  the  glorious  music 
and  noble  anthems,  resounding  within,  will  fall  on  their  ears ; 
they  will  see  the  statue  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  borne  through  the 
streets  on  the  15th  of  August,  amid  showers  of  snowy  blossoms, 
falling  from  the  innocent  hands  of  children  :  all  this  thev  must 
endure,  if  it  be  so  hard  to  endure  it ;  but  this  is  not  persecution. 
Even  to  their  eyes,  if  their  heart  be  not  frozen  by  a  cold  belief, 
the  sight  will  bear  some  attractions.  And  if  they  come  to  think, 
that  what  is  oldest  in  Christianity  is  the  best,  and  that,  after  all, 
Catholicity  has  something  in  it  which  makes  life  sweet  and  pleas- 
ant, it  can  scarcely  be  held  a  crime  in  the  universal  Church  to 
open  her  arms  and  receive  back  to  her  bosom  those  wandering 
and  so  long  obstinate  children. 

When  will  all  this  come  to  pass  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  But  stranger 
things  than  these  have  already  taken  place  in  Ireland,  and  we 
are  confident  that  future  historians  of  the  race  will  have  to  record 
greater  wonders  still,  and  facts  more  stubborn  and  difficult  of 
explanation. 

At  all  events,  should  the  inflexible  Puritanism  of  the  Scotch 
colony  stand  proof  against  the  allurements  of  a  motherly  and 
tender-hearted  Church,  they  must  at  least  become  subject  to  the 
iron  laws  of  population  and  absorption.  When  the  public 
statutes  are  no  longer  drawn  up  for  their  special  benefit,  when 
no  new  swarms  of  brethren  come  to  swell  their  ranks,  when  they 
are  abandoned  to  the  merciless  laws  of  loss  and  gain  in  numbers, 
then  will  people  soon  see  on  which  side  is  true  morality,  and  by 
which  the  ordinances  of  God  are  really  respected  ;  then  will 
many  vapid  accusations  against  the  holy  Catholic  Church  of 
themselves  disappear,  and  the  eyes  of  men  will  open  to  the  great 
fact  that  Ireland  must  be  and  remain  one  in  race,  feeling,  and, 


MORAL  FORCE.  519 

above  all,  in  religion.  The  foreign  element  will  have  dwindled  to 
insignificance,  if  it  shall  not  have  utterly  disappeared.  Indeed,  it 
may  be  safely  predicted  that  the  day  will  arrive  when  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  natural  demise  of  the  last  Puritan  in  Ireland 
will  appear  in  the  daily  newspapers  as  a  curious  piece  of  intelli- 
gence, not  devoid  of  a  certain  interest. 

Though  moral  force,  as  the  agent  of  the  regeneration  of  Ire- 
land, has  been  our  theme  all  through,  we  would  not  have  our 
readers  infer  that  Irishmen  should  adopt  the  do-nothing  policy, 
and  leave  to  God  alone  the  work  of  raising  them  up.  The  moral 
force  spoken  of  is  that  of  human  beings  endowed  with  activity 
and  determination,  steady  and  persevering  in  the  pursuit  of  well- 
organized  plans  of  their  own  conception. 

Let  Irishmen  lift  up  their  eyes  and  behold  what  they  might 
do,  did  they  only  appreciate  their  strength  and  husband  it.  Dire 
calamities,  which  God  designed  from  the  first  to  convert  into 
blessings,  have  scattered  them  over  the  world,  and  brought  out 
that  power  of  expansion  which  was  always  in  their  nature,  but 
lay  dormant  and  cramped  under  the  pressure  of  terrible  circum- 
stances. They  again  show  themselves  as  that  old  race  which 
three  thousand  years  ago  spread  itself  all  over  Europe  and  Asia. 
They  now  bear  in  their  hands  an  emblem  which  they  had  not 
then — the  cross  of  Christ !  And  the  cross  is  the  sign  of  univer- 
sality in  time  and  space.  To  that  sign,  since  the  triumph  of  the 
Saviour  on  the  day  of  his  resurrection,  is  given  the  rule  of  the 
world  till  the  end  of  time.  Now  that  our  globe  is  known  at  last, 
the  cross  must  be  planted  all  over  its  surface,  and  in  this  great 
work  the  Irish  race  is  clearly  destined  to  bear  a  conspicuous 
part. 

In  the  fulfilment  of  that  divine  vocation  they  are  dispersed, 
and  whatever  is  dispersed  is  deprived  of  a  great  part  of  its 
strength.  How  can  the  disjecta  membra,  scattered  far  and  wide 
by  Typhon,  become  again  Osiris  1  Under  the  guidance  of  God, 
by  that  great  instrument  of  modern  times,  the  power  of  associa- 
tion and  organization,  aided  by  a  steady,  energetic  will. 

Ezekiel  has  admirably  described  the  process  in  his  thirty- 
seventh  chapter.  The  Lord  must  first  speak  :  "  Ye  dry  bones, 
hear  the  word  of  the  Lord.  .  .  .  Behold,  I  will  send  spirit  into 
you,  and  ye  shall  live;  and  I  will  lay  sinews  on  you,  and  will 
cause  flesh  to  grow  over  you,  and  will  cover  you  with  skin  ;  and 
I  will  give  you  spirit,  and  ye  shall  live." 

All  this  seems  to  be  the  work  of  God  alone,  yet,  in  the  very 
words  of  the  prophet,  the  dry  bones  have  their  part  to  perform  : 

M  As  I  prophesied,  there  was  a  noise,  a  commotion,  and  the 
bones  came  together,  each  one  to  his  joint." 

There  is  the  whole  process  ;  it  supposes  a  noise,  a  commo- 
tion, a  rising,  an  assembling  together,  and  a  fitting  each  one  into 


520 


MORAL  FORCE. 


bis  own  joint.  They  possess  an  activity  of  their  own,  which  they 
must  use.  And  the  phenomenon  is  to  take  place  in  the  midst 
of  "  a  vast  plain  " — two  great  continents — over  the  surface  of 
which  the  "  bones "  are  found  on  every  side,  appearing  u  ex- 
ceeding dry." 

With  what  a  power  will  that  army  be  invested  when  it  rises 
up  and  stands  upon  its  feet !  We  may  form  some  faint  idea  of 
it,  when  in  our  large  cities  any  thing  occurs  to  excite  the  interest 
and  warm  up  the  feeling  of  that  apparently  inert  Celtic  mass. 
The  largest  halls  constructed  cannot  contain  the  multitudes  who 
have  only  read  the  announcement  of  a  meeting,  a  lecture,  or 
a  charitable  undertaking.  Such  scenes  are  witnessed  every  day 
along  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  Hudson,  and  the 
Delaware  Rivers  ;  by  the  shores  of  Chesapeake  Bay  ;  in  all  the 
great  centres  of  population  dotting  the  Atlantic  coast ;  in  the 
heart  of  the  continent  along  the  winding  course  of  the  Missis- 
sippi and  Missouri ;  and  already,  even  in  the  far  West,  on  the 
spreading  shores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  same  is  occurring 
all  over  the  inhabited  portion  of  Australia  and  the  adjacent 
islands.  What  power,  then,  would  be  theirs  did  those  "  bones  " 
know  how  to  come  together  each  in  his  own  joint ! 

How  is  it  that  we  hear  of  no  concerted  action  among  them 
for  their  country's  sake  ?  Is  each  man  so  busy,  and  lost  in  his 
own  little  sphere  of  interest  and  speculation,  that  he  cannot 
spare  a  moment's  thought  for  the  claims  of  his  native  country  ? 
Who  can  say  this  ?  Moreover,  the  best  means  of  promoting 
their  own  private  interests  would  be  to  raise  before  the  eyes  of 
all  the  status  of  the  country  with  which  they  are  naturally 
identified.  The  truth  is,  each  one  waits  for  another  to  set  the 
example,  the  mass  being  ever  ready  to  follow  a  lead  and  show  its 
good-will.    Association  is  needed. 

When  they  turn  their  eyes  to  the  incessant  struggle  going 
on  in  the  mother-country,  when  they  read  in  their  own  news- 
papers the  discussions  of  the  Irish  press,  of  the  questions  de- 
bated on  the  soil  most  dear  to  them,  and  the  agitation  of  the 
momentous  interests  pending  and  awaiting  a  final  decision 
among  their  former  countrymen,  no  doubt  their  feelings  are 
strongly  moved  ;  the  hopes  and  fears  of  their  youth,  before  they 
left  their  native  shores,  are  revived  with  renewed  force,  and  their 
love  for  their  green  island  is  as  ardent  as  ever. 

But  is  this  all  ?  Is  it  enough  that  the  heart  of  each  one  is 
stirred  within  him  ?  Is  it  not  for  them  to  see  that  the  influence  of 
their  new  name,  new  position,  and  bettered  circumstances,  be 
brought  to  bear,  however  far  away  they  may  be,  upon  the  great 
home  questions  of  land-tenure,  education,  the  elective  franchise,  a 
native  Parliament,  commerce,  manufactures,  and  all  matters 
touching  on  the  general  welfare  of  Ireland  ?    If,  having  become 


MORAL  FORCE. 


521 


adopted  citizens  of  a  new  country,  they  can  no  longer  act  a? 
citizens  of  Erin,  they  may  and  ought  at  least  to  interest  them 
selves  in  these  matters  as  far  as  true  loyalty  to  their  adopted 
country  may  allow  them  ;  and  this  they  can  best  do  by  asso- 
ciation. 

The  bonds  of  a  wise  organization  would  give  firmness  and 
compactness  to  the  whole  moral  force  of  the  dispersed  nationality. 
By  association,  the  scattered  "dry  bones"  would  be  speedily 
changed  into  a  solid  array  of  living  warriors  standing  upon  their 
feet,  and  the  startling  spectacle  would  astonish  the  whole  world, 
and  win  for  the  race  the  involuntary  respect  of  all  who  should 
witness  or  hear  of  it.  Nothing  would  be  easier  than  to  set  such  a 
thing  on  foot,  for,  although  so  far  apart  in  appearance,  the  ma- 
jority of  Irish  families,  from  the  very  fact  of  emigration,  have 
half  of  their  members  at  home  and  half  abroad,  joined  together 
by  an  active  correspondence  and  a  constant  transmission  of  funds. 
The  managers  of  the  movement  would  only  have  to  organize  for 
a  general  object,  what  already  is  organized  in  fact,  and  direct  to 
the  common  good  what  is  now  done  privately. 

A  word  has  already  been  said  on  the  possible  management 
of  such  an  organization  :  that  the  movement  should  begin  at 
home,  in  the  island ;  that  its  supervision  should  be  left  to  the 
true  leaders  of  the  nation  ;  and  that  all  the  workings,  details, 
and  executive  part,  may  be  safely  intrusted  to  the  active  mem- 
bers of  the  association. 

The  class  here  designated  as  leaders  of  the  nation  is  already- 
known  to  the  reader.  The  old  nobility  having  been  destroyed, 
there  is  no  other  body  which  truly  represent  the  Irish  people  to- 
day save  the  clergy.  This  is,  no  doubt,  a  misfortune,  but  none 
the  less  a  fact.  It  offers  the  anomaly  of  clergymen  meddling  to 
a  certain  extent  in  politics  ;  but,  in  Ireland,  this  is  unavoidable. 

How  does  the  whole  body  of  the  European  Catholic  clergy 
understand  its  position  in  all  those  Catholic  congresses  and 
unions,  which  are  now,  thank  God !  starting  up  in  all  Christian 
countries  ?  How  do  the  laymen,  on  their  side,  appreciate  the 
share  they  have  to  take  in  those  various  movements?  How  do 
they  act  under  the  lead  of  their  spiritual  advisers  ?  Are  any 
odious  distinctions  ever  known  in  those  associations  ?  Can  any 
misunderstanding  arise  among  men  animated  with  a  true  love 
for  religion  ?  And  why  should  not  the  same  be  true  of  Ireland, 
among  a  people  so  full  of  love  for  country  ?  This  is  what  is 
meant  when  the  terms  leaders  and  followers,  clergy  and  laity,  are 
here  used. 

Another  consideration  will  show  still  more  forcibly  the  impor- 
tance of  the  great  measure  here  proposed.  One  circumstance 
must  have  struck  those  who  read  the  detailed  reports  of  the 
Catholic  congresses  mentioned  above — the  sudden  appearance 


522 


MORAL  FORCE. 


of  a  large  array  of  laymen,  illustrious  by  their  birth,  wealthy 
political  power,  or  literary  attainments ;  but,  for  the  most  part, 
not  so  well  known  for  their  deep  attachment  to  the  cause  of  the 
Church.  A  new  channel  of  activity  was  suddenly  opened  up  to 
them  ;  they  threw  themselves  into  it,  and  became  the  bold  cham- 
pions of  a  cause  to  which,  undoubtedly,  they  had  been  individu- 
ally attached,  but  of  which  they  now  became  the  public  men. 
And  there  is  little  doubt  that  many  young  men,  lukewarm  be- 
fore, and  perhaps  with  nothing  more  than  the  remembrance  of 
the  Christian  education  they  had  once  received,  suddenly  revived 
in  spirit  and  made  a  solemn  profession  of  a  cause  which,  perhaps, 
they  would  not  have  had  the  courage  openly  to  advocate,  did  not 
the  number  and  names  of  the  first  originators  of  the  movement 
encourage  them  to  join  in  it  heart  and  soul. 

Now,  it  is  said,  perhaps  too  truly,  that  the  warm  religious 
feeling  which  has  been  all  along  claimed  as  the  most  striking 
characteristic  of  the  Irish  race,  is  no  longer  shared  alike  by  all 
classes  of  Irish  Catholics;  that,  too  often,  when  individuals 
among  them  rise  in  the  social  scale,  and  reach  a  step  in  the  social 
ladder  from  which  they  imagine  that  they  can  look  down  upon 
the  despised  mass  below,  they  no  longer  feel  that  deep  reverence 
for  their  religion  which  had  characterized  their  youth,  and,  after 
all,  are  not  very  different  from  the  mass  of  non-Catholics  among 
whom  they  prefer  to  move.  This  class  of  men  has  been  well 
described  by  Moore  in  his  own  person,  in  various  passages  of  his 
"  Irish  Gentleman  in  search  of  a  Religion." 

The  fact  is,  indeed,  too  true ;  but  what  is  the  chief  cause  of 
it  ?  One  of  the  most  active  means  of  bringing  about  such  a 
result  we  take  to  be  the  complete  isolation  in  which  young  men 
of  the  class  referred  to  find  themselves  in  their  own  sphere  of 
life.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  motive  for  displaying  their  attachment 
to  their  religion,  and  no  respectable  means  ot  doing  so.  They 
do  not  feel  their  souls  moved  by  sufficient  proselytic  ardor  to 
induce  them,  of  their  own  accord,  to  originate  any  thing  of  that 
kind,  and  the  generality  of  them  have,  probably,  not  received 
from  Nature  the  talents  requisite  to  make  them  leaders  in  any 
cause  whatever.  No  one  around  them  moves  in  that  direction  ; 
hence  their  apathy  and  consequent  lukewarmness  in  the  practice 
and  outward  profession  of  their  faith. 

But  change  all  the  surroundings ;  present  them  an  influential 
body  to  which  it  is  an  honor  to  belong — a  body  marching  openly 
under  the  banner  of  the  true  Church  of  Christ  and  of  their  coun- 
try, bound  together  as  of  old — and  then  will  it  be  seen  whether 
or  not  they  indeed  are  the  degenerate  sons  of  martyred  ancestors 
they  now  appear  to  be. 

It  is  indeed  very  remarkable  that,  of  all  countries,  Ireland 
seems  to  make  the  least  show  in  those  Catholic  unions  and  con- 


MORAL  FORCE. 


523 


presses  now  so  widely  spread  throughout  Europe.  The  reason 
tor  this,  perhaps,  is,  that  there  seemed  less  cause  for  their  exist- 
ence in  Ireland  than  elsewhere.  But,  as,  in  Ireland,  their  object 
would  not  only  embrace  the  interests  of  religion,  but  likewise 
those  of  the  country  itself,  it  seems  natural  to  think  that  there 
they  are  particularly  wanted. 

Let  the  leaders  of  the  nation,  then,  bestir  themselves.  Long 
ages  of  oppression  unfortunately  have  rendered  them  somewhat 
timid  and  seemingly  afraid  of  jeopardizing  the  important  inter- 
ests confided  to  their  care.  Let  them  lift  up  their  eyes  and  see 
that  the  time  for  timidity  has  passed  away :  the  enemy  is  reckless 
and  open  in  his  attacks ;  their  resistance  must  be  equally  undis- 
guised and  fearless.  The  people  themselves  understand  this  and 
occasionally  display  a  boldness  which  shows  that  the  old  heroism 
still  lives  in  them ;  but  they  want  leaders,  and,  if  the  right  ones 
are  not  fast  to  take  hold  of  them,  they  may  fall  into  the  hands 
of  wrong-headed  guides.  Let  the  true  guides  look  out  and  see 
how  broad  are  the  lines  which  divide  the  good  from  the  evil,  and 
that  victory  is  sure  to  the  stout  of  heart,  when  backed  by  the 
serried  masses  of  a  united  people. 

The  principle  of  association  and  the  machinery  of  organiza- 
tion must  be  applied  to  all  subjects  connected  with  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  country.  What  has  been  done  so  effectually  for  the 
cause  of  temperance  must  be  done  likewise  for  education,  for  the 
purchase  or  tenure  of  land,  for  the  development  of  agriculture, 
manufactures,  and  commerce,  for  the  true  representation  of  the 
nation,  for  free  municipal  government,  for  the  securing  of  a  truly 
Irish  yeomanry  and  gentry,  for  a  thousand  objects  on  which  the 
future  welfare  of  the  nation  depends.  All  classes  of  society, 
persons  of  every  age  and  of  either  sex,  yes,  women  and  children, 
ought  to  be  induced  to  take  an  interest  in  what  concerns  all  alike. 
Every  possible  occasion  should  be  taken  advantage  of  to  insure 
the  attainment  of  the  ultimate  object.  When  such  a  work  is 
really  entered  upon  in  earnest,  the  results  will  be  astonishing. 

This  is  the  complete  development  of  moral  force,  and,  until 
all  these  means  have  had  fair  trial,  no  one  can  say  that  moral 
force  has  been  fully  tried  and  has  failed. 

Such  a  system  would,  we  firmly  believe,  result  in  the  ultimate 
restoration  of  Ireland's  rights  and  would  surely  culminate  in  her 
final  resurrection  at  no  distant  date.  That  the  Irish  would  enter 
with  spirit  into  those  various  associations  has  been  sufficiently 
demonstrated  by  previous  examples,  particularly  under  CVCon- 
nell ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  see  how  surer,  greater,  and  speedier 
results  could  be  obtained  bv  any  amount  of  physical  force  of 
which  Ireland  is  capable.  ^VTiat  array  of  physical  force  can  the 
Irish  muster  to  compete  at  all  with  their  powerful  rivals,  situated 
as  they  are  with  the  chains  of  centuries  still  binding  them  down, 


524 


MORAL  FORCE. 


for,  though  the  shackles  may  be  actually  removed,  their  effect  is 
still  there.  The  very  statemeut  of  the  terms,  Ireland  versus 
England,  is  enough  to  show  the  hopelessness  of  such  a  combat. 
It  is  a  very  easy  thing  to  magnify  the  old  heroism  of  the  Irish, 
and  cast  opprobrium  on  the  present  bearers  of  the  name,  as  did 
several  newspaper  writers  recently,  for  not  displaying  the 
"  pluck  "  of  their  ancestors  who  fought  against  Elizabeth,  Crom- 
well, and  William  of  Orange.  It  is  forgotten  that  circumstances 
have  altered  considerably  since  those  days  when  the  Irish  pos- 
sessed a  regular  army  led  by  experienced  generals  :  restore  those 
circumstances,  and  the  Irish  of  to-day  might  outdo  their  ancestors ; 
at  all  events,  there  is  no  reason  for  supposing  that  they  would  be 
inferior.  However,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  impossibility,  and 
any  attempt  of  such  a  nature,  with  such  surroundings,  must  be 
deemed  by  all  sensible  men  not  merely  rashness,  but  folly. 

In  concluding  these  pages,  the  author  begs  to  be  allowed  a 
word  as  to  their  general  character,  in  reply  to  a  dogmatic  and 
comprehensive  criticism  which  it  is  easy  to  foresee  will  be  passed 
on  them.  It  will  undoubtedly  be  asserted  that  an  undue  promi- 
nence has  been  given  to  the  religious  side  of  the  Irish  question, 
while  its  many  political  aspects  have  been  left  in  the  background. 
This  charge  will  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  clerical  and  religious 
character  of  the  writer,  and  may  give  rise  to  the  notion  that  the 
view  here  taken  of  the  subject  is  not  the  right  one,  but  a  radical 
failure. 

The  answer  to  this  objection  is,  in  brief,  that  no  one  can  treat 
seriously  and  properly  of  the  Irish  race  without  taking  a  religious 
view  of  it.  Whoever  adopts  a  different  method  of  treating  the 
matter  would,  in  our  opinion,  go  completely  astray ;  would  take 
in  only  a  few  side-views  ;  would,  in  fact,  pretend  to  have  made  a 
serious  study  of  it,  which  he  offered  to  the  public  as  such,  while 
ignoring  the  chief  and  almost  only  feature. 

The  Irish  is  a  religious  race,  and  nothing  else.  It  seems  that 
such  was  its  character  thousands  of  years  ago,  even  when  pagan. 
At  the  time  when  Hanno  was  sent  by  the  Carthaginian  senate 
beyond  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to  explore  the  western  coast  of 
Africa,  toward  the  south — of  which  voyage  the  short  narrative 
is  still  left  us — Himilco,  brother  to  Hanno,  was  similarly  com- 
missioned to  form  settlements  on  the  European  coast,  toward  the 
north.  The  account  of  this  latter  expedition,  which  was  extant 
in  the  time  of  Pliny  the  Elder,  is  unfortunately  lost ;  but,  in 
the  poem  of  R.  Festus  Avienus,  entitled  "  Ora  Maritima,"  there 
are  copious  extracts  from  it,  in  which,  at  least,  the  sense  of  the 
original  is  preserved.  Avienus,  after  speaking  of  the  "  Insulae 
(Estrimnides,"  which  Heeren  thinks  must  be  the  Scilly  Islands, 
goes  on  to  say : 


MORAL  FOPwCE. 


525 


"  Ast  hinc  duobus  in  Sacram  (sic  insulam 
Dixere  prisci)  solibus  cursus  rati  est. 
Haec  inter  undas  multam  caespitem  jacet, 
Eamque  late  gens  Hibernorum  colit." 

The  passage  runs  almost  into  literal  English  as  follows : 

"  Thence  in  two  days,  a  good  ship  in  sailing 
Reaches  the  Holy  Isle 1 — so  was  she  called  of  old — 
That  in  the  sea  nestles,  whose  turf  exuberant 
The  race  of  Hibernians  tills." 

In  the  time  of  Himilco,  therefore,  five  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  Ireland  was  called  the  Holy  Isle,  a  title  she  had  received 
long  before :  Sic  insulam  dixere  prisci.  In  what  that  holiness 
may  have  consisted  precisely,  it  is  impossible  now  to  say ;  all  we 
know  is,  that  foreign  navigators,  who  were  acquainted  with  the 
world  as  far  as  it  was  then  known,  whose  ships  had  visited  the 
harbors  of  all  nations,  could  find  no  more  apt  expression  to  de- 
scribe the  island  than  to  say  that,  morally,  it  was  "  a  holy  spot," 
and  physically  "  a  fair  green  meadow,"  or,  as  her  children  to  this 
day  call  her,  "  the  green  gem  of  the  sea." 

But  we  have  better  means  of  judging  in  what  the  holiness  of 
the  people  consisted  after  the  establishment  of  Christianity  in 
their  midst ;  and  the  description  of  it  given  in  the  fourth  chapter 
of  this  book,  taken  from  the  most  trustworthy  documents,  shows 
how  well  deserved  was  the  title  the  island  bore. 

From  that  day  forth  the  religious  type  was  clearly  impressed 
on  the  nation,  and  has  ever  remained  deeply  engraven  in  its 
character.  The  race  was  never  distinguished  for  its  fondness 
for  trade,  for  its  manufactures,  for  depth  of  policy,  for  worldly 
enlightenment ;  its  annals  speak  of  no  lust  of  conquest  among 
its  people ;  the  brilliant  achievements  of  foreign  invasion,  the 
high  political  and  social  aspirations  which  generally  give  lustre 
to  the  national  life  of  many  a  people,  belong  not  to  them.  But 
religious  feeling,  firm  adherence  to  faith,  invincible  attachment 


formed  at  all  times  their  striking  characteristics. 

From  the  day  when  their  faith  was  first  attacked  by  the 

1  Dr.  Lingard,  evidently  perplexed  by  this  expression,  asks  himself,  "  What  might 
its  origin  have  been  ?  "  and  suggests  that  the  name  of  Ierne — the  same  as  Erin — hav- 
ing been  given  to  Ireland  by  the  ancients,  and  the  Greek  Upa — holy — bearing  a  great 
resemblance  to  it,  Avienus  might  have  thus  fallen  into  a  very  natural  mistake  of  con- 
founding the  one  with  the  other.  But,  in  the  first  place,  Himilco's  report  was  cer- 
tainly not  written  in  Greek,  but  in  Phoenician,  and  Avienus  seems  merely  to  have 
translated  that  report.  Moreover,  the  word  Upa  begins  with  a  very  strong  aspirate, 
equivalent  to  a  consonant,  while  there  are  few  vowels  softer  in  any  language  than  the 
first  in  Erin  or  Ierne.  Heeren  does  not  attempt  such  an  explanation,  but  concedes 
that  the  Carthaginians,  as  well  as  the  Phoenicians  before  them,  called  Ireland  the  Holy 


received  from  St.  Patrick, 


Isle. 


526 


MORAL  FORCE. 


Tudors  did  it  chiefly  blaze  forth  into  a  special  splendor,  which 
these  pages  have  striven  faintly  to  represent.  Before  taking  up 
the  pen  to  write,  after  the  serious  study  of  documents,  only  ono 
great  feature  struck  us — that  of  a  deep  religious  conviction  ;  and, 
after  having  seen  what  some  writers  have  had  to  say  recently, 
the  same  feature  strikes  us  still.  We  will  not  deny  that  this  fact 
moved  us  to  write,  and  the  task  was  the  more  grateful,  probably, 
because  of  our  own  personal  religious  character ;  but  we  are 
confident  that  any  layman,  whatever  might  be  his  talent  and 
disposition  for  describing  worldly  scenes,  who  took  up  Irish 
history,  could  find  nothing  else  in  it  of  real  importance  to  render 
the  annals  of  the  race  attractive  to  the  common  run  of  readers. 

And  is  not  religion  more  capable  of  giving  a  people  true 
greatness  and  real  heroism  than  any  worldly  excellence  ?  Men 
of  sound  judgment  will  always  find  at  least  as  much  interest 
attached  to  the  history  of  the  first  Maccabees  as  to  that  of 
Epaminondas  ;  and  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  Yendean  Cathelineau, 
with  his  "  beads  "  and  his  "  sacred  heart,"  will  always  appear 
to  an  impartial  judge  of  human  character  more  truly  admirable 
than  that  of  any  general  or  marshal  of  the  first  Napoleon.  Re- 
ligious heroism,  having  for  object  something  far  above  even  the 
purest  patriotic  fervor,  can  inspire  deeds  more  truly  worthy  of 
human  admiration  than  this,  the  highest  natural  feeling  of  the 
human  heart ;  and,  for  a  Christian,  the  most  inspiring  pages  of 
history  are  those  which  tell  of  the  superhuman  exertions  of 
devoted  knights  to  wrest  the  sepulchre  of  our  Lord  from  the 
polluted  hands  of  the  Moslem. 

But  religion  did  not  confine  her  influence  over  Irishmen  to 
the  bravery  which  she  breathed  into  them  on  the  battle-field. 
Religion  truly  constituted  their  inner  life  in  all  the  vicissitudes 
of  their  national  existence  ;  it  was  the  only  support  left  them  in 
the  darkest  period  of  their  annals,  during  the  whole  of  the  last 
century  ;  and,  when  the  dawn  came  at  last  with  the  flush  of 
hope,  religion  was  the  only  halo  which  surrounded  them.  Their 
emigration  even,  their  exodus  chiefly,  was  in  fact  the  sublime 
outpouring  of  a  crucified  nation,  carrying  the  cross  as  their  last 
religious  emblem,  and  planting  it  in  the  wilds  of  far-distant  con- 
tinents as  their  only  escutcheon,  and  the  sure  sign  which  should 
apprise  travellers  of  the  existence  of  Irishmen  in  the  deserts  of 
North  America  and  Australia. 

Truly,  those  men  are  very  ignorant  of  the  Irish  character  who 
would  abstract  the  religious  feature  from  it,  and  paint  the  nation 
as  they  would  any  other  European  people,  whose  great  aim  in 
these  modern  days  seems  to  be  to  forget  the  first  fervor  of  their 
Christian  origin.  With  the  Irish  this  cannot  be.  The  vivid 
warmth  of  their  cradle  has  not  yet  cooled  down  ;  and,  if  it  would 
be  indeed  ridiculous  to  represent  the  English  of  the  nineteenth 


MORAL  FORCE. 


527 


century  as  the  pious  subjects  of  Alfred  or  Edward,  it  would  be 
equally  foolish  to  depict  the  Irish  of  to-day  as  the  worldlings  and 
godless  of  France,  Italy,  or  Spain.  The  Irish  patriot  could  not 
be  like  them,  without  deserting  his  staudard  and  the  colors  for 
which  his  race  has  fought.  The  nation  to  which  he  has  the 
honor  of  belonging  is  still  Christian  to  the  core ;  and,  if  some 
few  have  really  repudiated  the  love  of  the  religion  they  took  in 
at  their  mothers  knee,  the  only  means  left  them  of  remaining 
Irishmen,  at  least  in  appearance,  is  not  to  parade  their  total  lack 
of  this,  the  chief  characteristic  of  their  race. 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS. 


A 

Anglo-Normans.    (See  Feudalism.) 
Antiquity  of  the  Irish  race,  Preface,  viii. 

Ard-Righ,  importance  of  the,  in  Celtic 
countries,  25  ;  authority  of  the,  27,  28. 

Association,  needed  for  the  uprising  of 
the  Irish  race,  482-484 ;  how,  is  to  be 
understood,  519-523. 

Attacotts,  were  not  slaves,  30. 

Australia,  position  of,  420,  421  ;  im- 
portance of  the  position  of,  421 ;  situa- 
tion of  the  Irish  at  first  in,  422  ;  subse- 
quent status  of  the  Irish  in,  463-465  ; 
land-system  in,  at  first,  468,  469  ;  how 
it  was  altered  subsequently,  469.  (See 
Hierarchy  and  Prophecy  op  Noah.) 

B 

Barbarism,  the  refusal  of  the  Irish  race 
to  follow  Europe,  no  proof  of,  Preface, 
xiii. ;  no,  but  real  civilization  in  Ireland, 
250-253. 

Bards,  number  of,  in  Ireland,  15  ;  patriot- 
ism of  the,  16  ;  preservation  of  the,  by 
Columba,  15,  16. 

C 

Calvinism  of  the  first  Ulster  Protestants, 
294. 

Cathedrals,  the,  of  Baltimore,  445  ;  erec- 
tion of,  promoted  by  the  example  of 
English  Catholics,  448,  449  ;  meaning 
of  a,  449  ;  vastness  of,  450  ;  under- 
taken, 451. 

Catholic,  the  majority  of  Irishmen  al- 
ways, 301-303. 

Charitable  Institutions,  origin  of,  455, 
et  seq.  ;  history  of,  456  ;  number  of,  in 
the  United  States,  452-455  ;  necessity 
of  all  those,  457-460 ;  in  Australia,  463. 


Churches,  Schools,  Asylums,  sums  re* 
quired  for  building,  440-445  ;  archi- 
tectural style  of,  443,  et  seq.  ;  number 
of,  in  the  Western  States,  446,  et  seq. 

Cities,  chosen  by  the  Irish  for  dwelling  in, 
in  the  United  States,  435  ;  chosen  from 
the  beginning  for  centres  of  Christian- 
ity, 436  ;  reasons  for  choosing,  437,  et 
seq.  ;  dangers  averted  by  choosing,  438, 
et  seq. 

Clanship,  origin  of,  22 ;  territory  in,  22, 
etseq.  ;  opposed  to  feudalism,  135,  137, 
139, 144, 153  ;  conquers  feudalism,  146, 
148. 

Communes,  origin  of,  170  ;  no  need  of,  in 
Ireland. 

Confiscation  of  land  the  object  of  Anglo- 
Norman  invasion,  138,  151 ;  new  feat- 
ure in,  under  the  first  Stuart,  256 ; 
not  arrested  by  prescription,  252  ;  in 
Connaught,  under  Charles  L,  264  ;  un- 
der Cromwell,  276,  282-284  ;  of  Crom- 
well, perpetuated  by  Charles  II.,  280- 
283. 

Congregationalism,  of  Cromwell,  296. 
Crom  Cruagh,  character  of  the  worship 
of,  72. 

Crusades,  not  preached  in  Ireland,  159 ; 
heresies  brought  by  the,  to  Western 
Europe,  luO. 

D 

Danes.    (See  Scandinavians.) 

Death,  a  punishment  dreaded  by  Irish- 
men, 87  ;  an  object  of  desire,  87 ;  res- 
ignation to,  of  the  Irish,  88. 

Despotism,  neither  Catholic  theology  nor 
the  Catholic  hierarchy  the  cause  of,  in 
England,  243  ;  causes  of  the,  of  the 
Tudors,  243,  244. 

Dublin,  stronghold  of  the  Danes,  126. 


INDEX  OF 

E 

Education,  laws  against,  in  Ireland  (see 
Penal  Laws)  ;  still  of  an  inferior  kind 
in  Ireland,  500 ;  means  of  raising  the 
level  of,  501 ;  projects  of  godless,  504- 
506  ;  necessary  for  the  uprising  of  the 
nation,  508,  et  seq. 

Emigration  and  Emigrants,  originated  by 
the  Reformation,  376 ;  of  the  soldiers 
under  Cromwell,  274,  376  ;  after  the 
Williamite  war,  376  ;  through  the 
eighteenth  century,  377  ;  effects  of 
those,  378-380  ;  of  clergymen,  380, 
386,  el  seq.  ;  of  women  and  children, 
275,  383-387 ;  effects  of  those,  388- 
390  ;  beginning  of  the  voluntary  Irish, 
391,  el  seq.  ;  position  of  Irish,  in  Amer- 
ica during  the  eighteenth  century,  392- 
398  ;  loss  to  the  Church  by  this,  not  so 
complete  as  it  is  supposed,  399-401 ; 
beginning  of  the  last,  403-405 ;  situa- 
tion of  Irish,  405-408  ;  immediate 
causes  of  this,  408-413  ;  to  Canada, 
413-416  ;  to  the  eastern  provinces, 
416-418  ;  to  Australia,  422,  el  seq. ; 
to  Australia,  beneficial  to  Ireland,  466, 
et  seq.  ;  to  England,  469,  et  seq.  ;  char- 
acter of  Irish,  compared  to  the  English, 
471-474  ;  in  general,  475,  et  seq. 

European  Thought,  the  Irish  refuse  to 
follow,  Preface,  vii.,  and  passim  through 
the  first  half  of  the  volume  ;  England, 
the  actual  leader  of,  54-56 ;  the  Irish 
opposed  to,  56. 

Exodus,  causes  of  the,  425  ;  first  results, 
427-430  ;  England  repairs  the  first 
effects  of  the,  430-433 ;  first  fruits  of 
the,  434,  et  seq. ;  further  favorable  re- 
sults, 477-479  ;  greater  results  of  the, 
in  Australia,  480-482  ;  results  of  the, 
to  be  secured  and  increased  by  asso- 
ciation, 482,  et  seq.  (See  Churches,  Ca- 
thedrals, Charitable  Institutions.) 

F 

Famine,  no,  among  the  ancient  Irish,  308 ; 
after  the  Munster  wars  of  Elizabeth, 
214  ;  periodical,  from  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  308-312 ;  of 
1846,  description  of,  425  ;  of  1846,  cause 
of  the  exodus,  412,  413,  427  ;  perma- 
nent in  Ireland,  409,  et  seq. 

Feudalism  and  Feudal,  character  of,  133  ; 
in  England,  134  ;  opposed  to  clanship, 
135,  137,  139,  144,  153  ;  occupation  of 
land  by,  138-140;  castles,  139;  laws 
rejected  by  the  Irish,  143 ;  conquered 
by  clanship,  146-148. 

File.    (See  Bards,  14,  el  seq.) 
34 


SUBJECTS.  529 

France  and  French,  modern  instability 
of  the,  367,  368  ;  reason  why,  haa 
changed  since  last  century,  Preface,  iv. ; 
Vend6ans  compared  to  Irish  Tories, 
260-263. 

G 

Government  (Representative),  is,  due  to 
Protestantism  ?  243  ;  origin  of,  353  ; 
not  successful  out  of  English-speaking 
countries,  353,  354  ;  results  of,  in  other 
countries,  357. 

Greece,  philosophy  of,  an  obstacle  and 
danger  to  the  primitive  Church,  64,  65 ; 
philosophy  of,  the  origin  of  many  here- 
sies, 66,  67. 

H 

Harp,  antiquity  of  the,  18  ;  successful  de- 
velopments of  the,  19  ;  universality  of 
the  use  of  the,  in  Ireland,  20,  21. 

Heresy,  emanating  from  Greek  philo- 
sophy, 66,  67  ;  brought  to  Western  Eu- 
rope  by  the  Crusades,  160  ;  mentioned 
in  Ireland  only  once,  160;  how,  was 
put  down  in  Ireland,  164  ;  races  in- 
clined to,  165,  169  ;  the  Irish  untouched 
by  the  spirit  of,  167.  (See  Rational- 
ism.) 

Hierarchy,  in  Australia,  423 ;  developed 
in  the  United  States  by  the  exodus,  435  ; 
developed  in  Australia,  465,  466. 

Historians  in  Ireland.  (See  Literature.) 

Homage,  as  understood  by  the  Irish,  138  ; 
meaning  of  the  word,  among  feudal 
nations,  138. 

Home-Rule,  the  Irish  have  a  right  to, 
342  ;  would  not  heal  all  the  wounds  of 
Ireland,  343  ;  would  not  give  a  suffi- 
cient scope  to  representative  govern- 
ment in  Ireland,  355  ;  what,  would 
produce,  356  ;  would  not  satisfy  all  the 
wants  of  the  nation,  357.  (See  Irish 
Parliament.) 

K 

Kilkenny  (Statutes  of),  148  ;  object  of  the, 
148  ;  inoperative,  149,  150. 

Kilkenny  (Confederation  of),  sketch  of 
the,  266  ;  in  the,  the  clergy  establish 
the  right  of  resistance  in  self-defence, 
267 ;  a  solid  government  founded  by 
the,  268. 

Kings,  provincial,  28. 

L 

Land,  in  the  clan-system,  22-24  ;  im- 
portance of,  in  feudalism,  133,  135, 
158 ;  the  object  of  Norman  invasion. 


530  INDEX  OF 

151  ;  gained  by  the  Irish,  154 ;  acts  of 
the  Irish  Parliament  with  respect  to, 
155  ;  pressure  for,  the  cause  of  the 
flight  of  the  earls,  258.  (See  Confisca- 
tion.) 

Laws,  feudal,  contrasted  with  the  Brehon, 
143  ;  opinion  of  Edmund  Burke  on  the 
penal,  299 ;  fanaticism,  more  than  greed, 
the  cause  of  the  penal,  299 ;  unity  of 
the  penal,  800  ;  the  penal,  took  the 
political  rights  away,  301,  304 ;  took 
civil  rights  away,  304-306,  309 ;  took 
away  human  rights,  313,  314, 318,  319 ; 
effects  of  the  penal,  on  the  people,  320- 
324  ;  cause  of  the  strength  of  the  Irish 
in  resisting  the  penal,  325. 

Liegeman,  as  understood  by  the  Irish  in 
opposition  to  the  feudal  meaning  of  the 
word,  144. 

Literature,  Celtic,  10-17  ;  peculiarities 
of  Celtic,  17,  et  seq. ;  Irish,  saved  by  the 
monks  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  381-383. 


Manicheism,  primitive,  65,  66 ;  Mediaeval, 
161. 

Martyrs,  under  Elizabeth,  224-228  ;  un- 
der the  penal  laws,  314-318  ;  in  Eastern 
Asia,  461,  462. 

Mind,  peculiarities  of  the  Irish,  34, 80,  81. 

Missions,  old  Irish,  100. 

Monasteries,  the  Irish  attached  to,  93, 
195,  197;  building  of,  94,  97,  98;  mul- 
titude of,  94,  95  ;  literature  of,  196  ; 
all  the  island  occupied  by,  196  ;  rules 
of  the  primitive,  96  ;  out  of  Ireland, 
101 ;  destruction  of,  194,  200-203. 

Monotheism  of  the  Celtic  nations,  69 ; 
the  pagan  Irish  inclined  to,  74. 

Moral  force,  of  liberalism,  485,  488  ;  of 
agitation,  488-494  ;  was,  defeated  in 
the  repeal  agitation  ?  492-494 ;  objects 
of,  495 ;  the  proper  means  of  restoring 
a  proper  system  of  education  to  Ireland, 
500-502,  504,  506.  Through  the  last 
chapter,  passim. 

Morality,  Irish,  pure,  35. 

Music,  Irish,  18. 

N 

Nation,  are  the  Irish  a,  and  do  they  in- 
clude two  ?  514-518.    (See  People.) 

Nature,  view  of,  in  the  Irish  mind,  85, 
91 ;  united  to  grace,  96. 

Nobility,  Henry  Vlll.  tries  to  gain  over 
the  Irish,  178,181 ;  Elizabeth  first  tries 
duplicity  on  the  Irish,  207t  225;  de- 


SUBJECTS. 

struction  of  the  Anglo-Norman,  in  the 
south,  213 ;  in  the  north,  216  ;  James 
L  destroys  the  Irish,  in  the  north,  258  ; 
Cromwell  destroys  the,  all  over  the  isl- 
and, 274,  275  ;  Vico's  ideas  of,  inde- 
fensible, 328  ;  feudal  ideas  of,  329 ; 
mediaeval  ideas  of^  329 ;  Irish  notions 
of,  compared  to  other  svstems,  830- 
332  ;  fall  of  the  Irish,  333-335  ;  what 
Englishmen  thought  of  the  fall  of  the 
Irish.  336 ;  means  employed  to  bring 
on  the  fall  of  the  Irish,  336,  837  ;  pol- 
icy of  Cromwell  toward  the  Irish,  338, 
839  ;  destruction  of  the  Irish,  final, 
339-341. 

O 

Ollamh.    (See  Literature,  10,  et  seq.) 
Oath,  as  a  religious  test,  297-301. 

P 

Pale  (English),  how  far  the,  was  reduced 
under  the  Tudors,  145,  176. 

Parliament  (Irish),  origin  of  the,  147 ; 
corrected  by  344 ;  the  Irish  race  ex- 
cluded from,  148,  345  ;  of  Kilkenny, 
148 ;  acts  of,  to  wrest  the  land  from 
the  Irish,  155  ;  Irish,  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  297,  298  ;  record  of  Irish,  343, 
et  seq. ;  general  object  of  Irish,  344, 
345  ;  of  1782,  352  ;  prosperity  from 
the  Irish,  of  1782,  reduced  to  Protest- 
ants, 349-351.  (See  Government,  rep- 
resentative.) 

Pauperism,  effect  of  the  penal  laws  in  Ire- 
land, 306-308  ;  actual,  495-498  ;  can 
be  remedied  by  moral  force,  498-500 ; 
to  be  removed  chiefly  by  a  new  land- 
tenure  law,  507. 

Peace  Party,  opposed  to  the  Xuneicmists, 
268  ;  leaders  of  the,  269 ;  results  of 
the,  270. 

People,  first  mention  of  the  Irish,  in  the 
English  state  papers,  178,  179 ;  Irish, 
opposed  to  Protestantism,  183  ;  Irish, 
born  of  the  opposition  to  the  new  here- 
sies, 186 ;  history  of  the,  in  general, 
187,  et  seq. ;  the,  growing  stronger  in 
Ireland,  189  ;  the  Irish,  created  and 
nurtured  by  religion  and  love  of  coun- 
try, 190,  et  seq.,  287-289;  the  Irish,  in- 
cluding both  the  old  race  and  the  An- 
glo-Normans, 193  ;  the  Irish,  united  by 
the  love  of  the  religious  orders,  199,  et 
seq.  ;  policy  of  the  destruction  of  the, 
213.  et  seq.;  the  Tudors  ignoring  the, 
335  ;  what  a  Christian,  can  do  in  our 
days,  500 ;  the  Irish  can  form  a  strong, 
513. 


INDEX  OF 

Persecution,  under  Elizabeth,  226  ;  spies 
used  for,  227  ;  secret  police  for,  227 ; 
invention  of  secret  police  by  Elizabeth 
for,  337  ;  under  the  penal  laws,  314- 
318. 

Philosophy,  of  history,  what  it  ought  to 
be,  Preface,  v. ;  Greek,  64  ;  Eastern,  ob- 
stacle to  Christianity,  65  ;  Greek,  source 
of  heresy,  66. 

Priesthood,  nature  of  the  Christian,  88  ; 
the  Irish  attached  to  the,  89,  et  seq. ; 
power  of  the,  92. 

Prophecy  of  Noah,  text  of  the,  39  ;  ful- 
filment of  the,  gradually  prepared, 
Chapter  ii.,  passim  ;  the  Irish  mission 
in  the  fulfilment  of  the,  56,  57  ;  details 
of  the  fulfilment  of  the,  400  ;  situation 
of  Australia  favorable  to  the  fulfilment 
of  the,  420,  421  ;  further  details  of, 
428-430,  460,  461  ;  with  respect  to 
Australia,  466  ;  steam  and  electricity 
helping  the  fulfilment  of  the,  483. 

Protestantism,  how,  was  first  introduced 
into  Ireland,  180,  et  seq.  ;  the  people 
opposed  to,  183  ;  the  nobility  soon 
aroused  against,  185  ;  second  attempt 
to  introduce,  by  Elizabeth,  204 ;  easily 
accepted  by  England,  230  ;  easily  re- 
ceived by  Scandinavians,  232,  233  ; 
helped  by  Scandinavian  rapacity,  235  ; 
not  promotive  of  freedom  and  civiliza- 
tion in  England,  240,  et  seq. ;  not  the 
result  of  a  higher  civilization  in  Eng- 
land, 244 ;  effects  of,  on  England  and 
other  nations,  246 ;  as  to  representative 
government,  247  J  Ireland  not  prepared 
for,  249-253. 

R 

Race,  what  is  understood  by,  2,  3  ;  power 
of  expansion  of  the  Celtic,  4-6  ;  Celtic, 
with  respect  to  a  sea-faring  life,  6-9  ; 
literature  of  the  Celtic,  9-18 ;  music 
and  art  of  the  Celtic,  18-21 ;  govern- 
ment in  the  Celtic,  21-24  ;  social  state 
in  the  Celtic,  24-38  ;  Asiatic  and  Afri- 
can, formerly  full  of  energy,  39  ;  de- 
generacy of  the  same,  41 ;  first  appear- 
ance of  the  Japhetic,  41 ;  its  develop- 
ments in  Rome,  43  ;  Christianity  renders 
the  Japhetic,  able  to  fulfil  its  mission, 
45 ;  spread  of  the  Japhetic,  in  modern 
times,  47-50  ;  means  furnished  to  it  for 
expansion,  50. 

Rationalism,  nature  of,  81 ;  no  trace  of, 
among  the  Irish,  81  ;  of  John  Scotus 
Erigena,  82  ;  alibi  passim. 

Rebellion  and  Rebels,  were  the  Irish  ? 


SUBJECTS.  531 

141,  186,  209,  et  seq.,  219;  first  general, 
144  ;  a  Catholic  a,  in  the  eyes  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  217,  et  seq. ;  bishops  and 
monks  martyrs,  not,  220,  et  seq. 

Religious  Orders,  old,  replaced  by  more 
modern  institutions,  199 ;  the  Church 
in  Ireland  created  by,  195,  196  ;  could 
not  be  destroyed  in  Ireland,  197. 

Resistance  {right  o/),  nature  of  the, 
859,  360-363  ;  of  Tories  in  Ireland, 
360-362. 

Revelation,  primitive,  68. 

Revolutionary  Spirit,  the  Irish,  from 
the  beginning,  opposed  to  the,  266,  290, 
291 ;  the  Irish  opposed  to  the,  in  mod- 
ern times,  372,  373  ;  nature  of  the, 
363,  364  ;  origin  of  the,  364-366  ;  his- 
tory of  the,  366-368 ;  its  actual  form, 
369-371  ;  idem,  438. 

Rome,  utilitarianism  of,  60 ;  civilization 
of,  an  obstacle  to  the  Christian  ideal, 
61 ;  idolatry  of,  a  greater  obstacle,  62, 
et  seq. ;  philosophy  of,  the  source  of 
great  evils  to  Christianity,  64-67. 

Scandinavia  and  Scandinavians,  de- 
scription of,  107  ;  the  people  of,  differs 
from  the  Teutons,  107 ;  religion  of, 
108-110  ;  social  state  of,  110  ;  warfare 
of,  111,  112;  characteristics  of  the 
mind  of,  114;  success  ot  the,  in  Eng- 
land and  on  the  Continent,  117-121  ; 
aptitude  of,  for  commerce  and  munici- 
pal life,  122 ;  conversion  of,  in  Ireland, 
126,  127 ;  the,  adopt  Irish  manners, 
128 ;  no  trace  left  of,  in  Ireland,  129, 
130;  aptitude  of,  for  Protestantism, 
232.  et  seq. 

Shanachy.    (See  Literature,  13.) 

Slavery,  in  Ireland,  domestic,  not  social, 
83. 

Social  Feelings,  Irish,  34-39. 

Sovereign  Rights,  left  to  the  Irish  by 
the  Anglo-Normans,  141,  146. 

Spies  and  Informers,  operations  of,  in 
Ireland,  226,  227 ;  system  of,  invented 
by  Elizabeth,  336,  337;  some  Irishmen 
found  among,  338. 

Statutes  of  Kilkenny,  object  of  the,  148  ; 
inoperative,  149,  150. 

St.  Patrick,  mission  of,  76,  et  seq.;  su- 
pernatural teaching  of,  86. 

St.  Thomas,  doctrine  of,  on  government, 
241,  et  seq. 

Supernatural,  the  Christian  religion  emi< 
nently,  84 ;  Irish  love  of  the,  86,  87, 
et  seq. 


532  INDEX  OF 

T 

Tanistry,  nature  of,  25,  27 ;  disadvan- 
tages of,  33S. 
Titles  (defective),  commission  for,  260,  261. 

U 

Ulster  Protestant  Colony,  character 
of  the,  259,  260 ;  the,  could  not  coa- 
lesce with  the  Irish,  282 ;  the,  under 
William  III.,  293  ;  the,  reduced  by  the 
volunteer  movement,  349  ;  the,  as  it 
exists  to-day,  516-519. 


SUBJECTS. 

United  States,  energy  of  the,  418,  419, 
the,  promote  the  mission  of  Irishmen, 
440,  443. 

Universities,  old,  in  Ireland,  173;  dan- 
gers from  European,  174. 


V 

Volunteers  (Irish),  origin  of  the,  345 ; 
history  of  the,  346 ;  the,  exclude  th% 
Catholics  from  the  franchise,  846- 
348. 


THZ  IHD. 


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